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Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 

in  2012  with  funding  from 

University  of  North  Carolina  at  Chapel  Hil 


http://archive.org/details/twentyfiveyearsiedwa 


TWENTY-FIVE  YEARS  IN  THE 
BLACK  BELT 


William  J.  Edwards 


Twenty-Five  Years 
in  the  Black  Belt 


BY 


WILLIAM  J.  EDWARDS 


ILLUSTRATED 


THE  CORNHILL  COMPANY 

BOSTON 


Copyright,  1918 

by 

The  Cobnhill  Company 


TO  MY  LOVING  WIFE  WHO  ENCOURAGED  ME  IN  ALL  MY 

EARLY  STRUGGLES  AND  AIDED  ME  IN 

ALL    MY  ACHIEVEMENTS 


to 
o 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

1.  Childhood  Days 1 

2.  Shadows 7 

3.  A  Ray  of  Light 13 

4.  Life  at  Tuskegee 18 

5.  Reconnoitering 26 

6.  Founding  the  Snow  Hill  School  ....  35 

7.  Small  Beginnings 37 

8.  Campaigning  for  Funds  in  the  North     .      .  43 

9.  Results 49 

10.  Origin  of  the  Jeanes  Fund 54 

11.  Appreciation 56 

12.  Graduates  and  Ex-Students 63 

13.  The  Solution  of  the  Negro  Problem      .      .  77 

14.  The  Greatest  Menace  of  the  South       .      .  86 

15.  The  Negro  Exodus 94 

16.  The  Negro  and  the  Public  Schools  of  the 

South        100 

17.  Where  Lies  the  Negro's  Opportunity  ?        .  104 

18.  School  Problems  of  a  Tuskegee  Graduate  109 

19.  Benefits  Wrought  by  Hardships        .      .      .  115 

20.  The  Negro  and  the  World  War  ....  210 
Appendix 127 


LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS 


William  J.  Edwards Frontispiece 

Uncle  Charles  Lee  and  His  Home  in  the 

Black  Belt Facing  Page     32 

First  Trustees  of  Snow  Hill  and  Two 

of  Their  Wives 36 

Partial  View  of  Snow  Hill  Institute  48 

A  New  Type  of  Home  in  the  Black  Belt  52 

Typical  Log  Cabin  in  the  Black  Belt  60 

Home  of  a  Snow  Hill  Graduate     ...  60 

Graduates  of  Snow  Hill  Institute  72 

Teachers  of  Snow  Hill  Institute       .      .  ■■        «      100 


PREFACE 

In  bringing  this  book  before  the  public,  it  is  my  hope 
that  the  friends  of  the  Snow  Hill  School  and  all  who 
are  interested  in  Negro  Education  may  become  more 
familiar  with  the  problems  and  difficulties  that  con- 
front those  who  labor  for  the  future  of  a  race.  I  have 
had  to  endure  endless  hardships  during  these  twenty- 
five  years,  in  order  that  thousands  of  poor  negro 
youths  might  receive  an  industrial  education, — boys 
and  girls  who  might  have  gone  into  that  demoralized 
class  that  is  a  disgrace  to  any  people  and  that 
these  friends  may  continue  their  interest  in  not  only 
Snow  Hill  but  all  the  schools  of  the  South  that  are 
seeking  to  make  better  citizens  of  our  people.  I  also 
hope  that  the  interest  may  be  sustained  until  the  State 
and  Nation  realize  that  it  is  profitable  to  educate  the 
black  child  as  well  as  the  white. 

To  me,  these  have  been  twenty-five  years  of  self 
denial,  of  self  sacrifice,  of  deprivation,  even  of  suffer- 
ing, but  when  I  think  of  the  results,  I  am  still  encour- 
aged to  go  on ;  when  I  think  of  the  work  that  Mr.  Mc- 
Duffie  is  doing  at  Laurinburg,  N.  C,  Brown  at  Eich- 
mond,  Ala.,  Knight  at  Evergreen,  Ala.,  Mitchell  at  W. 
Butler,  Ala.,  Carmichael  at  Perdue  Hill,  Ala.,  Brister 
at  Selma,  Ala.,  and  hundreds  of  others,  I  feel  that  the 
sacrifice  has  not  been  in  vain,  so  I  continue  believing 


xii  PREFACE 

that  after  all  the  great  heart  of  the  American  people 
is  on  the  right  side.  I  think  that  to-day,  the  Negro 
faces  the  dawn, — not  the  twilight, — the  morning, — not 
the  evening. 

In  my  passionate  desire  to  hasten  that  time  and  with 
the  crying  needs  of  my  race  at  heart,  I  choose  this  op- 
portunity for  making  an  appeal  in  their  behalf. 

"Lord,  and  what  shall  this  man  do?"  (John  21.) 

Man  is  a  relative  being  and  should  be  thus  consid- 
ered. The  status  of  my  brother  then  will  always  serve 
as  a  standard  of  value  by  which  my  own  conduct  can 
be  measured ;  by  his  standard  mine  may  become  either 
high  or  low,  broad  or  narrow,  deep  or  shallow.  This 
is  the  theory  that  underlies  all  humanitarian  work. 
This  is  the  great  dynamic  force  of  the  Christian  life. 

No  question  is  being  asked  by  the  American  people 
more  earnestly  today  than  this  one :  "Lord,  What  shall 
this  man,  the  Negro,  do, — this  black  man  upon  whom 
centuries  of  ignorance  have  left  their  marks?"  He 
has  made  a  faithful  slave,  a  courageous  soldier,  and 
when  trained  and  educated,  an  industrious  and  law- 
abiding  citizen,  yet  he  is  troubled  on  every  side.  What 
shall  he  do?  Uneducated,  undisciplined,  untrained,  he 
is  often  ferocious  or  dangerous;  he  makes  a  criminal 
of  the  lowest  type  for  he  is  the  product  of  ignorance. 

Crime  has  increased  in  proportion  as  educational 
privileges  have  been  withdrawn.  This  brings  the 
Negro  face  to  face  with  a  most  dangerous  criminal 
force.  What  shall  this  man  do?  It  is  true  that  the 
white  man  is  further  up  on  the  ladder  of  civilization 
than  the  Negro,  but  the  Negro  desires  to  climb  and  has 
made  rapid  strides,  according  to  his  chances. 


PREFACE  xiii 

Christ's  answer  to  Peter  was,  "What  is  that  to  thee, 
follow  thou  Me."  John's  future  welfare  evidently 
depended  upon  Peter's  ability  to  follow  Christ.  So 
the  future  work  and  welfare  of  the  Negro  in  the 
Black-Belt  of  the  South  depend  largely  upon  the 
Christian  work  of  the  southern  white  man.  The  Negro 
needs  justice  and  mercy  from  the  courts  of  the  land 
and  asks  for  equal  rights  in  educational  opportunities. 

We  admit  that  there  is  a  difference  between  the 
white  man  and  the  Negro,  but  the  difference  is  not 
as  great  as  was  the  difference  between  Christ  and 
His  disciples.  We  admit  that  the  white  man  is  above 
the  Negro,  but  not  so  high  as  was  Christ  above  His 
disciples.  The  very  fact  that  Christ  was  superior  to 
His  disciples  served  to  Him  as  a  reason  why  He  should 
minister  unto  them.  The  superiority  of  the  white 
man  to  his  black  brother  can  only  be  shown  by  the  white 
man's  willingness  to  minister  unto  him.  Lord,  what 
shall  this  black  man  do? 

Many  great  problems  confront  the  people  of  the 
rural  South,  namely,  this  Negro  Problem  and  the  prob- 
lem of  sufficient  labor  supply.  In  a  practical  way  I 
wish  to  consider  the  relation  of  the  Negro  to  the  labor 
problem  of  the  rural  South.  It  is  a  fact  that  today 
many  of  the  best  farms  of  the  South  have  been  turned 
into  pastures  because  of  the  lack  of  labor ;  other  farms 
have  been  sold,  and  still  others  are  growing  up  in 
weeds  because  there  is  no  one  to  till  them.  This 
condition  obtains  in  a  very  marked  degree  in  almost 
every  southern  state.  Certainly  in  most  of  the  Agri- 
cultural Sections. 

Before  investigating  the  cause  of  this  condition,  men 


xiv  PREFACE 

of  influence  and  power  have  hastened  to  proclaim 
through  the  press  and  otherwise,  that  the  responsibil- 
ity rests  upon  the  Negro.  They  say  that  the  Negro  is 
lazy,  worthless,  criminal  and  will  not  work  and  there- 
fore they  are  compelled  to  have  immigrants  to  work 
these  fields.  That  there  are  lazy,  worthless  and  crim- 
inal Negroes,  we  do  not  deny,  but  we  do  deny  that  as 
a  race  they  are  such. 

The  facts  are  these:  first,  the  South,  unlike  other 
sections  of  the  country,  has  not  had  thousands  of  im- 
migrants to  come  into  her  borders  year  after  year  to 
do  her  work,  but  has  depended  solely  upon  the  increase 
in  her  native  population  for  this  purpose.  This  in- 
crease has  not  kept  pace  with  the  marvellous  growth 
and  development  of  that  section,  hence,  the  cry  for 
labor.  Second,  scarcity  of  labor  in  that  section  is  due 
in  part,  to  ignorance  and  a  false  idea  of  real  freedom. 
Men  with  such  ideas  do  not  work  long  in  any  one  place, 
but  rove  from  section  to  section  and  work  enough  to 
keep  themselves  living.  This  labor  is  not  only  un- 
profitable to  the  individual,  but  is  not  satisfactory  to 
the  employers.  Third,  the  labor  trouble  in  the  rural 
South  is  due  mostly  to  the  way  in  which  the  landlords 
and  merchants  treat  their  tenants  and  customers. 

The  great  mass  of  Negroes  in  the  South  either  rent 
the  lands  or  work  them  on  shares.  This  rent  varies 
according  to  the  kind  of  crops  that  are  made.  If  the 
tenant  makes  a  good  crop  this  year,  he  must  expect  to 
pay  more  rent  the  next  year,  or  his  farm  will  be  rented 
to  another  at  higher  figures.  Of  course,  the  Negroes 
are  ignorant  and  are  unable  to  keep  their  own  ac- 
counts.   Sometimes  these  Negro  farmers  pay  as  much 


PREFACE  xv 

as  50%,  75%  and  100%  on  the  goods  and  provisions 
which  they  consume  during  the  year. 

This  method  of  renting  lands  and  selling  goods  ac- 
cording to  the  condition  of  the  crops,  is  repeated  year 
after  year.  I  know  ignorant  farmers  who  have  been 
working  under  these  conditions  for  twenty-five  and 
thirty  years,  who  have  never  been  able  to  get  more 
than  $15  or  $20  in  any  one  year  during  this  period. 
These  are  not  worthless  and  shiftless  Negroes,  but 
persons  who  work  hard  from  Monday  morning  until 
Saturday  night.  As  a  rule,  they  are  on  their  farms  at 
sunrise,  and  remain  there  until  sunset.  They  have 
their  dinners  brought  to  them  in  the  fields.  I  have 
seen  small  families  grow  into  large  ones  under  these 
conditions.  I  have  also  seen  infants  grow  to  manhood 
under  same.  Now,  these  people  who  have  been  work- 
ing in  this  way  for  twenty-five  and  thirty  years  are 
becoming  discouraged.  When  you  ask  them  why  they 
do  not  ditch,  fertilize,  and  improve  their  farms,  their 
answer  is,  that  if  they  do  this,  the  next  year  they  will 
either  have  to  pay  more  rent  or  hunt  another  home 
for  themselves. 

It  seems  to  be  the  policy  of  the  landlords  and  the 
merchants  of  the  rural  South  to  keep  their  tenants 
and  customers  in  debt.  It  is  this  abominable  method 
of  the  landlords  and  tenants  of  the  rural  South  more 
than  anything  else,  that  has  caused  many  of  the  best 
farming  lands  there  to  be  turned  into  pastures,  others 
to  be  sold  at  sheriff  sale,  and  still  others  to  be  grow- 
ing up  in  weeds.  Another  menace  is  loss  of  fertility 
of  the  soil. 

The  problem  is,  how  can  we  stop  these  people  from 


xvi  PREFACE 

leaving  the  country  for  the  cities  and  other  places  of 
public  works  and  again  reclaim  these  waste  fields?  It 
was  once  thought  that  the  places  of  these  Negroes 
could  be  supplied  by  immigrants  from  foreign  coun- 
tries, but  this  hope  is  now  almost  abandoned.  In  fact, 
the  few  immigrants  who  have  gone  into  that  section 
have,  in  many  instances,  been  oppressed  almost  as 
much  as  the  Negroes,  many  have  gone  to  other  parts 
of  the  country  or  have  returned  to  their  homes. 
So  we  find  ourselves  face  to  face  with  large  and  fertile 
agricultural  areas  in  the  South  with  no  labor  to  till 
them. 

The  remedy  of  these  evils  lies  in  the  Negro  himself. 
He  is  best  suited  to  the  work,  best  adapted  to  the  cli- 
mate, and  understands  the  southern  white  man  better 
than  anyone  else.  Furthermore,  he  knows  the  white 
man;  knows  his  disposition  and  inclinations,  and 
therefore,  knows  what  is  so  called  his  place.  He  feels 
that  justice  is  wanting  in  the  courts  of  the  South  and 
he  therefore  tries  to  avoid  all  troubles.  Most  of  all, 
he  prays  for  a  chance  to  work  and  educate  his  chil- 
dren. He  labors  and  waits  thus  patiently  because  he 
has  faith  in  the  American  people.  He  believes  that 
ere  long  the  righteous  indignation  of  this  people  will 
be  aroused  and  like  the  great  wave  of  prohibition, 
will  sweep  this  country  from  center  to  circumference, 
and  then  every  man  will  be  awarded  according  to  his 
several  abilities. 

These  waste  places  can  be  reclaimed  and  the  gut- 
tered hills  made  to  blossom,  only  by  giving  the  Negro 
a  common  education  combined  with  religious,  moral 
and  industrial  training  and  the  opportunity  to  at  least 


PREFACE  xvii 

own  his  home,  if  not  the  land  he  cultivates.  The 
Negro  must  be  tanght  to  believe  that  the  farmer  can 
become  prosperous  and  independent ;  that  he  can  own 
his  home  and  educate  his  children  in  the  country.  If 
he  can,  and  he  can  be  taught  these  things,  in  less  than 
ten  years,  every  available  farm  in  the  rural  South 
will  be  occupied. 

WILLIAM  J.  EDWAEDS. 


TWENTY-FIVE  YEARS  IN  THE 
BLACK  BELT 


TWENTY-FIVE  YEARS  IN 
THE  BLACK  BELT 


CHAPTER  1. 

Childhood  Days. 

All  that  I  know  of  my  ancestors  was  told  to  me  by 
my  people.  I  learned  from  my  grandfather  on  my 
mother's  side  that  the  family  came  to  Alabama  from 
South  Carolina.  He  told  me  that  his  mother  was 
owned  by  the  Wrumphs  who  lived  in  South  Carolina, 
but  his  father  belonged  to  another  family.  For  some 
cause,  the  Wrumphs  decided  to  move  from  South 
Carolina  to  Alabama;  this  caused  his  mother  and  fa- 
ther to  be  separated,  as  his  father  remained  in  South 
Carolina.  The  new  home  was  near  the  village  of 
Snow  Hill.  This  must  have  been  in  the  Thirties  when 
my  grandfather  was  quite  a  little  child.  He  had  no 
hope  of  ever  seeing  his  father  again,  but  his  father 
worked  at  nights  and  in  that  way  earned  enough 
money  to  purchase  his  freedom  from  his  master.  So 
after  four  or  five  years  he  succeeded  in  buying  his 
own  freedom  from  his  master  and  started  out  for  Ala- 
bama. When  he  arrived  at  Snow  Hill,  he  found  his 
family,  and  Mr.  Wrumphs  at  once  hired  him  as  a  driv- 
er   He  remained  with  his  family  until  his  death,  which 


2  TWENTY-FIVE  YEARS 

occurred  during  the  war.  At  his  death  one  of  his  sons, 
George,  was  appointed  to  take  his  place  as  driver. 

As  I  now  remember,  my  grandfather  told  me  that 
his  mother's  name  was  Phoebe  and  that  she  lived  until 
the  close  of  the  war.  My  grandfather  married  a 
woman  by  the  name  of  Rachael  and  she  belonged  to  a 
family  by  the  name  of  Sigh.  His  wife's  mother  came 
directly  from  Africa  and  spoke  the  African  language. 
It  is  said  that  when  she  became  angry  no  one  could 
understand  what  she  said.  Her  owner  allowed  her 
to  do  much  as  she  pleased. 

My  grandfather  had  ten  children,  my  mother  being 
the  oldest  girl.  She  married  my  father  during  the  war 
and,  as  nearly  as  I  can  remember,  he  told  me  that  it 
was  in  1864.  Three  children  were  born  to  them  and  I 
was  the  youngest ;  there  was  a  girl  and  another  boy. 

I  know  little  of  my  father's  people,  excepting  that 
he  repeatedly  told  me  that  they  came  from  South 
Carolina.  So  it  is,  that  while  I  can  trace  my  ancestry 
back  to  my  great-grandparents  on  my  mother's  side, 
I  can  learn  nothing  beyond  my  grandparents  on  my 
father's  side.  My  grandfather  was  a  local  preacher 
and  could  read  quite  well.  Just  how  he  obtained  this 
knowledge,  I  have  never  been  able  to  learn.  He  had 
the  confidence  and  respect  of  the  best  white  and  col- 
ored people  in  the  community  and  sometimes  he  would 
journey  eight  or  ten  miles  to  preach.  Many  times  at 
these  meetings  there  were  nearly  as  many  whites  as 
colored  people  in  the  audience.  He  was  indeed  a 
grand  old  man.  His  name  was  James  and  his  fa- 
ther's name  was  Michael.  So  after  freedom  he  took 
the  name  of  James  Carmichael. 


IN  THE  BLACK  BELT  3 

One  of  the  saddest  things  abont  slavery  was  the 
separation  of  families.  Very  often  I  come  across  men 
who  tell  me  that  they  were  sold  from  Virginia,  South 
Carolina  or  North  Carolina,  and  that  they  had  large 
families  in  those  states.  Since  their  emancipation, 
many  of  these  have  returned  to  their  former  states 
in  search  of  their  families,  and  while  some  have  suc- 
ceeded in  finding  them,  there  are  those  who  have  not 
been  able  to  find  any  trace  of  their  families  and  have 
come  back  again  to  die. 

Sometimes  we  hear  people  attempt  to  apologize  for 
slavery,  but  slavery  at  its  best  was  hard  and  cruel. 
Often  the  old  slaves  tell  me  of  their  bitter  experience. 
Even  today,  there  are  everywhere  in  the  South  many 
ex-slaves  who  lived  their  best  days  before  and  during 
the  civil  war.  Many  of  these  men  and  women  found 
themselves  alone  at  the  close  of  the  war,  having  been 
sold  away  from  their  families  while  they  were  slaves. 

I  was  born  at  Snow  Hill,  Wilcox  County,  Alabama, 
September  12th,  1869,  three-quarters  of  a  mile  east 
of  where  Snow  Hill  Institute  now  stands.  My  mother 
died  September  9th,  1870,  at  which  time  I  lacked  three 
days  of  being  one  year  old.  From  all  I  can  learn  my 
mother  was  very  religious.  She  was  a  great  praying 
woman  and  almost  at  every  meeting  held  in  the  neigh- 
borhood she  would  be  called  upon  to  pray.  In  fact, 
she  was  sent  for  miles  around  to  pray  at  these  meet- 
ings. My  mother's  death  left  my  father  with  three 
children,  I  being  the  youngest.  He  succeeded  in  get- 
ting his  mother,  who  was  cooking  for  her  white  peo- 
ple in  Selma,  Alabama,  to  come  and  take  us  in  charge. 
My  name  was  Ulyses  Grant  Edwards,  but  my  grand- 


4  TWENTY-FIVE  YEARS 

mother,  who  had  been  with  white  people  since  eman- 
cipation, changed  my  name  to  William.  I  afterward 
added  to  this  my  grandfather's  name  of  James. 

My  father  went  away  to  work  and  I  remained  with 
my  grandmother.  We  lived  about  one  mile  from  the 
"quarter," — that  is,  the  collection  of  slaves'  cabins. 
We  had  about  three  acres  of  ground  cleared  around 
our  cabin  and  my  grandmother  and  I  farmed.  I  do 
not  know  how  old  I  was  when  I  began  working,  for  I 
have  been  a  farm  hand  ever  since  I  could  remember 
anything.  We  usually  made  one  bale  of  cotton  each 
year  and  about  twenty-five  or  thirty  bushels  of  corn. 
Sometimes  my  grandfather  would  do  our  plowing  and 
at  other  times, — as  we  had  no  stock, — my  grand- 
mother and  I  worked  out  for  others  to  get  our  plow- 
ing done. 

In  the  summer  time  it  was  the  custom  for  little 
Negro  boys  to  wear  only  one  garment,  a  shirt.  Some- 
times, however,  my  grandmother  would  be  unable  to 
get  one  for  me  and  in  that  case  she  would  take  a 
crocus  sack  or  corn  sack  and  put  two  holes  in  it  for 
my  arms  and  one  for  my  head.  In  putting  on  a  sack 
shirt  for  the  first  time  the  sensation  was  extremely 
irritating.  It  seemed  as  if  a  thousand  pins  were  stick- 
ing me  all  at  once,  but  after  a  few  days  it  would  be- 
come all  right  and  I  could  wear  it  comfortably.  For 
several  summers  this  was  my  only  garment. 

Sometimes  we  would  raise  a  pig  during  the  summer 
to  kill  in  the  winter  and  sometimes  we  had  a  cow  to 
milk.  At  such  times  we  had  plenty  to  eat,  but  at  other 
times  we  had  neither  a  pig  nor  a  cow  and  then  we  had 
hard  times  in  the  way  of  getting  something  to  eat. 


IN  THE  BLACK  BELT  5 

Some  days  our  only  diet  was  corn-bread  and  corn 
coffee. 

When  I  was  old  enough,  I  was  sent  to  school  for  two 
or  three  months  each  winter.  Here  again  I  had  a  hard 
time,  as  we  usually  carried  our  dinner  in  a  little  tin 
bucket.  Sometimes  I  had  nothing  but  bread  and  when 
recess  came  for  dinner,  I  went  away  by  myself  and  ate 
my  bread  and  drank  water.  As  long  as  I  could  keep 
out  of  the  way  of  the  other  children,  no  one  was  the 
wiser  and  I  did  not  mind  it,  but  some  of  the  children 
began  to  watch  me  and  in  that  way  found  that  I  had 
nothing  but  bread,  and  when  they  told  the  others,  they 
would  laugh  and  make  fun  of  me.  This  would  make 
me  feel  badly  and  sometimes  I  cried,  but  I  did  not  stop 
school  for  this.  My  one  desire  was  to  learn  to  read 
the  Bible  for  my  old  grandmother,  who  like  my 
mother,  was  very  religious.  At  last  I  was  able  to  read 
the  Bible  for  her.  She  would  listen  for  hours  and  too, 
she  would  sing  such  songs  as,  "Boll,  Jordan  Koll." 

Saturdays  were  mill  days  and  I  had  to  take  the  corn 
on  my  shoulder  and  go  to  the  mill,  which  was  four  or 
five  miles  away.  It  always  took  me  from  four  to  five 
hours  to  make  this  trip,  as  I  had  to  stop  by  the  way 
several  times  to  rest. 

By  this  time  my  brother  and  sister  were  large 
enough  to  do  good  work  on  the  farm.  My  grandfather 
and  grandmother  for  whom  they  were  working,  now 
desired  to  take  them  wholly  from  my  old  grand- 
mother. The  Justice  of  the  Peace  said  that  the  chil- 
dren might  decide  the  matter.  My  brother  chose  to 
go  to  my  grandfather's  but  my  sister  came  back  home 
with  the  grandmother  who  had  reared  us  from  in- 


6  TWENTY-FIVE  YEAKS 

fants.  Of  course,  I  did  not  go  to  court,  because  they 
all  knew  that  there  was  no  chance  of  my  leaving  my 
grandmother. 

In  the  early  spring  of  1880  while  on  one  of  my  trips 
to  the  mill  the  thought  dawned  upon  me  that  my 
grandmother  was  very  old  and  must  soon  die.  I  cried 
all  the  way  to  the  mill  and  back.  I  could  not  see  how 
I  would  live  after  she  was  gone.  I  did  not  tell  anybody 
why  I  was  crying.  On  a  June  night,  she  became  se- 
verely ill  and  died.  All  she  said  to  us  during  her  ill- 
ness was:  " Children,  I  have  been  waiting  for  this 
hour  a  long  time." 

After  the  death  of  my  grandmother,  her  daughter 
Marina  Rivers,  who  was  herself  a  widow  and  well  on 
in  years,  came  to  live  with  us  that  year.  I  soon  learned 
to  love  her  as  I  had  my  grandmother  and  never  once 
thought  of  leaving  her  for  my  mother's  people.  We 
gathered  the  crop  that  fall  and  when  all  was  over,  my 
father,  whom  I  had  not  seen  for  five  or  six  years,  came 
to  carry  my  sister  and  myself  to  Selma,  where  he  was 
staying.  The  thought  of  going  to  the  city  filled  me 
with  joy  and  the  time  to  go  could  not  come  too  soon 
for  me. 


IN  THE  BLACK  BELT 


CHAPTER  2. 

Shadows. 

We  arrived  in  Selma  several  days  before  Christ- 
mas. Here  everything  was  strange  to  me,  as  I  had 
never  been  in  a  city  before.  I  did  not  know  any  one 
and  it  was  not  long  before  I  was  crying  to  return  to 
Snow  Hill.  My  father  gave  me  to  understand  then, 
that  Selma  was  my  home  now  and  that  I  should  not 
be  permitted  to  return  to  Snow  Hill.  He  said 
that  he  was  going  to  put  me  in  school  when  the  New 
Year  came,  but  when  the  time  came  nothing  was  said 
about  school.  He  gave  us  little  care  and  often  we 
were  in  need  of  food  and  clothes. 

After  spending  a  few  weeks  doing  nothing,  I  went 
out  one  day  to  hunt  for  work  and  succeeded  in  getting 
a  job  at  the  compress,  where  they  reduced  the  size  of 
a  bale  of  cotton  by  one-half  and  clipped  the  tires.  My 
job  was  to  straighten  out  the  bent  tires.  I  got  twenty- 
five  cents  a  day  for  this.  That  week  I  made  one  dollar 
and  fifty  cents.  This  was  the  most  money  I  had  ever 
had.  I  spent  almost  all  of  it  for  provisions  and  that 
night  my  sister  cooked  a  great  supper.  Finally,  my 
father  said  that  he  would  save  my  wages  for  me,  but 
if  he  did  he  has  it  still,  as  I  never  have  seen  any  that 
he  collected. 

I  had  not  been  in  Selma  long  before  I  was  taken  ill. 
That  misfortune  changed  my  whole  life.     I  had  no 


8  TWENTY-FIVE  YEARS 

medical  attendance  and  suffered  greatly.  Sometimes 
I  prayed  and  sometimes  I  cried.  The  news  reached 
Snow  Hill  that  I  was  sick  and  not  being  cared  for.  As 
soon  as  she  could,  my  aunt  Kina  came  to  Selma  for 
me  and  carried  me  home. 

On  my  return  to  Snow  Hill  I  was  sick  and  ema- 
ciated, but  few  people  welcomed  me.  Many  tried  to 
discourage  my  aunt  for  bringing  me  back.  They  gave 
me  about  three  months  to  live.  I  was  glad  to  be  at 
home  again  and  had  the  consolation  of  knowing  that 
should  I  die  I  would  be  buried  in  the  old  burying 
ground. 

I  was  unable  at  the  time  to  do  any  work  on  the  farm, 
so  I  was  put  to  the  task  of  raising  chickens.  I  took 
personal  interest  in  the  little  chicks.  I  had  a  name  for 
each  one  of  them.  I  would  follow  them  around  the 
yard  and  see  them  work  for  their  food.  When  I  was 
weary  of  this  I  would  go  to  an  old  deserted  cabin 
nearby,  taking  a  few  old  books  and  the  Bible;  there 
unmolested  I  would  spend  hours  at  a  time  reading  the 
Bible  and  pondering  over  the  books.  One  of  the  books 
was  an  old  Davies'  Practical  Arithmetic.  Nothing 
gave  me  more  pleasure  than  working  out  new  sums 
for  the  first  time.  I  kept  up  this  practice  until  I  had 
read  the  New  Testament  through  several  times  and 
had  worked  every  problem  in  the  arithmetic.  In  addi- 
tion to  this  I  would  gather  up  wood  and  carry  it  home 
for  the  people  to  cook  with. 

My  aunt  and  her  daughter  were  very  poor  and  had 
to  work  each  day  for  what  they  could  get  to  eat.  It 
pained  me  because  I  could  not  go  out  and  work  for 
something  to  eat  as  I  had  done  in  Selma.    I  never  ate 


IN  THE  BLACK  BELT  9 

a  full  meal  although  my  aunt  and  her  daughter  in- 
sisted upon  my  doing  so ;  I  felt  that  I  had  no  right  to 
eat  up  what  they  had  worked  so  hard  to  get,  while  I 
was  doing  nothing  that  was  worth  while.  My  aunt's 
daughter  had  a  son  who  was  one  month  older  than  I; 
he  was  well  grown  for  his  age  and  always  was  the 
picture  of  health.  We  all  lived  in  a  one-room  cabin 
and  there  were  three  beds  in  it,  besides  it  was  the 
kitchen  and  dining-room  as  well.  My  aunt  and  her 
daughter  wanted  me  to  sleep  at  nights  with  their  boy, 
but  he  objected,  so  I  would  not  force  myself  upon  him. 
I  asked  them  to  give  me  one  or  two  old  quilts  and  I 
would  spread  these  upon  the  floor  of  the  cabin  at  night 
for  my  bed.  I  would  get  up  early  and  roll  them  up 
and  store  them  away  in  some  dark  corner  of  the  cabin 
until  the  next  night,  I  slept  in  this  manner  for  sev- 
eral years. 

After  I  had  been  at  home  for  several  months  and 
my  condition  did  not  improve,  my  aunt  went  about 
begging  people  for  nickels  and  dimes  to  take  me  to 
the  local  physician.  I  think  she  raised  about  three 
dollars  in  this  way  and  succeeded  in  getting  a  doctor 
to  treat  me,  but  he  gave  my  aunt  to  understand  that 
she  had  to  pay  cash  for  each  treatment. 

I  shall  never  forget  one  Sunday  when  a  great  many 
of  the  neighbors  came  to  our  home,  they  began  telling 
my  aunt  what  they  would  do  with  me  if  they  were  in 
her  place.  At  the  time  I  was  in  the  back-yard  watch- 
ing the  chicks.  Some  one  said  that  she  should  send 
me  to  the  poorhouse,  others  said  that  she  had  done  so 
much  for  me,  it  was  time  that  some  of  my  other  people 
should  take  me  and  share  in  the  burden,  while  others 


10  TWENTY-FIVE  YEAES 

said  that  I  should  be  driven  away  and  go  wherever  I 
could  find  shelter.  I  was  so  offended  at  hearing  this 
that  I  hobbled  down  the  hill  and  there  under  a  pine 
tree,  which  now  stands,  I  prayed  for  an  hour  or  more 
for  God  to  let  me  die.  After  this  prayer  I  lay  down, 
folded  my  arms  and  closed  my  eyes,  to  see  if  my 
prayer  would  be  answered.  After  waiting  for  awhile 
I  finally  decided  to  get  up  and  I  felt  better  then  than 
I  had  felt  for  several  months.  I  have  made  many 
prayers  since  then,  but  never  since  have  I  prayed  to 
die. 

None  of  the  solicitations  and  advices  from  our  good 
friends  could  change  my  aunt's  attitude  towards  me. 
In  fact,  she  was  more  determined  now  than  ever  to 
care  for  me.  The  next  year  she  rented  a  little  patch 
and  worked  it  as  best  she  could  and  that  fall  she 
cleared  a  little  money.  As  the  local  physician  had 
done  me  no  good,  she  took  me  to  Dr.  George  Keyser 
who  lived  in  the  town  of  Eichmond,  eight  or  ten  miles 
away.  Dr.  Keyser  had  the  reputation  of  being  the  best 
physician  in  that  section  of  the  state  and  people  would 
come  for  twenty-five  and  thirty  miles  around  to  be 
treated  by  him.  But  we  had  also  heard  that  he  was  a 
man  who  would  not  treat  any  one  without  having  his 
money  down.  As  I  remember,  my  aunt  paid  him  five 
dollars  on  the  first  visit  and  each  time  after  that  she 
would  send  whatever  she  could  get.  I  used  to  borrow 
a  mule  from  one  of  the  neighbors  to  ride  to  see  him. 
Sometimes  when  my  medicine  gave  out  and  I  had  to 
go  without  any  money,  I  would  pray  to  God  the  whole 
distance  that  he  might  soften  the  doctor's  heart  so 
that  he  would  let  me  have  my  medicine.    I  don 't  know 


IN  THE  BLACK  BELT  11 

whether  my  prayers  were  needed  or  not,  but  I  do 
know  that  the  doctor  always  treated  me  kindly  and 
finally  he  told  me  that  I  could  be  treated  whenever  my 
medicine  gave  out,  money  or  no  money.  He  treated 
me  in  this  way  until  the  early  fall  of  '84  when  he  told 
my  aunt  that  I  needed  an  operation  and  she  must  try 
and  get  me  a  place  to  stay  nearby  so  that  he  could 
see  me  daily.  After  looking  around  she  found  on 
the  doctor's  place  an  old  fellow-servant,  that  is,  an 
old  lady  who  belonged  to  the  same  man  my  aunt  did 
in  slavery  time.  Her  name  was  Lucy  George ;  she  was 
near  the  age  of  my  aunt,  and  had  never  been  married. 
They  were  indeed  glad  to  meet  and  she  readily  con- 
sented to  take  me  to  her  little  cabin  where  she  lived 
alone.  The  doctor  visited  his  plantation  two  or  three 
times  a  week  and  usually  came  to  see  me.  He  operated 
on  me  twice  during  my  stay  there. 

"In  1883  the  subject  of  this  sketch,  W.  J.  Edwards,  was  sent  to 
me  by  his  aunt,  Rina  Rivers,  for  medical  treatment.  He  had  been 
sick  for  several  months  from  scrofula  and  it  had  affected  the  bone 
of  his  left  arm  (hinneras)  near  the  elbow  joint,  and  the  heel  bone 
(os  calcis)  of  his  left  foot.  It  was  with  much  difficulty  and  pain 
that  he  walked  at  all. 

The  boy  was  kind,  courteous  and  polite  to  every  one,  white  and 
colored,  and  all  sympathized  with  him  in  his  great  affliction,  and 
manifested  their  sympathy  in  a  very  substantial  way,  by  sending 
him  many  good  things  to  eat.  This  enabled  me  to  build  up  his 
general  health. 

I  had  to  remove  the  dead  bone  (necrosed  bone)  from  his  arm  and 
heel  many  times.  He  always  stood  the  operation  patiently  and 
manifested  so  great  a  desire  to  get  well,  I  kept  him  near  me  a  long 
time  and  patiently  watched  his  case. 

After  four  years'  treatment  his  heel  cured  up  nicely,  and  he  was 
enabled  to  walk  very  well,  and  the  following  fall  he  picked  cotton. 
With  prudence,  care  and  close  application  to  cotton  picking,  he  saved 
money  enough  to  very  nearly  pay  his  medical  account,  and  his  fare 
to  Booker  Washington's  School  at  Tuskegee,  Alabama. 

The  work  of  this  pupil  of  Booker  Washington, — carried  on  under 


12  TWENTY-FIVE  YEARS 

adverse  circumstances, — is  worthy  of  emulation.  He  has,  and  is 
now,  doing  much  good  work  for  his  race.  He  has  won  the  confi- 
dence and  esteem  of  all  the  white  and  colored  citizens  of  this  sec- 
tion of  the  country.  He  is  a  remarkable  man,  a  great  benefactor  to 
his  race,  and  it  affords  me  great  pleasure  to  testify  as  to  his  history 
and  character.  Mr.  R.  O.  Simpson,  on  whose  plantation  he  lived 
and  who  aided  him  materially, — is  one  of  the  Trustees  of  his  In- 
stitute." 

Geobge  W.  Keyseb,  M.  D. 
Richmond,  Dallas  County,  Alabama. 


IN  THE  BLACK  BELT  13 


CHAPTER  3. 
A  Ray  of  Light. 

For  three  months  after  my  first  operation  I  could 
not  walk.  My  aunt  would  come  from  Snow  Hill  once 
a  week  to  bring  my  rations  and  to  see  how  I  was  get- 
ting along.    I  always  cried  when  she  went  home. 

During  my  first  month's  stay  on  the  doctor's  place, 
"Aunt  Lucy"  George  with  whom  I  lived,  was  at 
home  most  of  the  time,  but  when  the  cotton  season 
came  on,  she  had  to  go  to  the  doctor's  field,  which  was 
a  mile  away,  to  pick  cotton.  This  left  me  alone  for 
five  days  in  the  week.  "Aunt  Lucy"  would  get  up 
early  and  prepare  her  breakfast,  take  her  lunch  to 
the  field  with  her,  and  would  not  return  until  night. 
She  would  also  leave  me  something  to  eat,  and  I  could 
crawl  about  the  house  and  get  such  other  things  as  I 
needed. 

The  first  few  days  that  I  was  alone  were  the  most 
miserable  days  of  my  life.  I  tried  to  walk,  but  fainted 
once  or  twice  at  these  attempts,  so  I  had  to  be  con- 
tented with  crawling.  Soon,  however,  I  began  crawl- 
ing about  the  yard.  I  found  several  red  ants'  nests 
within  about  twenty  or  twenty-five  yards  of  the  house, 
and  soon  made  friends  of  the  ants.  I  would  crawl 
from  nest  to  nest  and  watch  them  do  their  work.  I 
became  so  interested  in  them  that  I  would  spend  the 


14  TWENTY-FIVE  YEARS 

whole  day  watching  and  following  them  about  the 
yard.  I  would  be  anxious  for  the  nights  to  pass  that 
I  might  return  to  them  the  next  day. 

I  found  that  the  ants  worked  by  classes.  One  class 
would  bring  out  the  dirt,  another  would  go  out  in 
search  of  food,  another  would  take  away  the  dead,  an- 
other would  over  look  those  that  worked,  and  still  an- 
other class,  though  few  in  numbers,  would  come  out 
and  look  around  and  then  return.  These  had  much 
larger  heads  than  the  average.  Some  few,  however, 
with  great  heads,  would  come  out  once  or  twice  a  day. 
I  never  learned  what  their  business  was,  as  they  did 
not  seem  to  do  much  of  anything.  They  very  seldom 
went  more  than  a  few  inches  from  the  nests.  I  no- 
ticed, too,  that  those  that  went  in  search  of  food  and 
failed  to  get  it,  would  come  back  to  the  nests  and  stand 
around  and  consult  with  the  guards  and  then  would 
return.  They  did  this  several  times.  Sometimes  they 
would  go  away  and  get  into  the  weeds  and  rest  awhile. 
However,  when  they  saw  others  coming,  they  would 
start  out  again.  Sometimes,  after  making  several 
trips  without  success,  I  would  give  them  crumbs  of 
bread,  and  they  would  hasten  away  to  their  nests. 
They  never  hesitated  when  they  had  food,  but  would 
run  right  in.  This  was  great  fun  for  me,  and  I  spent 
most  of  the  remainder  of  my  time  in  this  manner. 

This  was  during  the  fall  of  '84.  By  the  first  week  in 
December  I  had  recovered  sufficiently  to  be  able  to 
walk  very  well  with  a  stick  and  could  do  a  little  work. 
I  then  returned  to  Snow  Hill  with  my  aunt,  and, 
though  I  was  anxious  to  return  home,  I  hated  very 
much  to  leave  my  little  friends.  I  got  home  in  time  to 
make  toy  wagons  for  my  Christmas  money. 


IN  THE  BLACK  BELT  15 

The  following  year,  although  far  from  being  well, 
I  could  do  a  little  work  on  my  aunt's  farm.  I  ought 
not  to  call  it  a  farm,  because  it  was  only  a  few  acres 
which  she  rented  from  one  of  the  tenants  on  Mr. 
Simpson's  plantation.  The  habit  of  sub-renting  was 
very  prevalent  on  this  plantation.  A  tenant  with  one 
mule  would  rent  twenty-five  acres,  if  he  had  two 
mules  he  would  rent  fifty  acres.  Now  in  order  to  get 
work  done  on  his  farm,  he  would  sub-rent  four  or  five 
acres,  to  some  one  who  would  do  this  work  for  him. 
It  was  in  this  way  that  my  aunt  could  get  land  to  work. 
We  usually  made  on  these  few  acres  about  twenty 
bushels  of  corn  and  sometimes  a  half  a  bale  or  a  whole 
bale  of  cotton. 

Having  to  work  for  our  plowing  and  to  pay  the  rent 
of  the  land,  we  had  but  little  chance  to  do  much  work 
for  ourselves.  We  very  seldom  had  enough  to  eat. 
Some  days  we  would  work  from  the  rising  of  the  sun 
until  dark  without  anything  but  water.  Then  my  aunt 
would  go  out  among  the  neighbors  in  the  evening  and 
borrow  a  little  corn  meal  or  get  a  little  on  condition 
that  she  would  work  to  pay  for  it  the  next  day.  While 
my  aunt  would  go  to  hunt  for  the  bread  I  would  go  out 
and  beg  for  some  milk  from  some  of  our  friends.  I 
would  always  add  water  to  my  milk  to  make  it  go  a 
long  way.  This  bread  and  half-water-and-milk  con- 
stituted our  supper  for  many  nights. 

In  spite  of  these  hard  times  I  always  found  time  to 
study  my  books.  Sometimes  I  borrowed  books  from 
the  boys  and  girls  who  had  them.  We  were  too  poor 
to  buy  oil  so  I  would  go  to  the  woods  and  get  a  kind 
of  pine  that  we  called  light-wood.     This  would  make 


16  TWENTY-FIVE  YEARS 

an  excellent  light  and  I  could  study  some  nights  until 
twelve  o'clock.  When  the  blackberries,  peaches,  ap- 
ples and  plums  were  ripe,  we  fared  better,  as  these 
grew  wild  and  we  could  have  a  plenty  of  them  to  eat. 
As  the  season  came  for  the  corn  to  mature,  we  would 
sometimes  make  a  meal  of  green  corn.  When  the  corn 
became  too  hard  for  us  to  use  in  this  way,  we  used  to 
make  a  grater  out  of  an  old  piece  of  tin  and  would 
grate  the  corn  and  make  meal  of  it  in  this  way  until 
it  was  hard  enough  to  go  to  the  mill. 

When  the  cotton  picking  season  came  on  we  could 
pick  cotton  for  the  neighbors  and  in  that  way  could 
have  a  plenty  to  eat.  They  paid  fifty  cents  a  hundred 
pounds  for  picking  cotton.  I  sometimes  picked  two 
hundred  pounds  a  day,  but  by  picking  at  night,  I  occa- 
sionally got  almost  three  hundred.  We  children 
thought  it  great  fun  to  go  into  the  swamps  at  night  to 
pick  cotton.  We  would  go  at  seven  o'clock  in  the  eve- 
ning and  spend  the  whole  night  in  the  cotton  fields. 
When  we  got  sleepy  we  would  lie  down  in  the  cotton 
row  with  our  cotton  sacks  under  our  heads.  We  would 
sleep  a  few  hours  and  get  up  and  begin  picking  again. 
In  the  swamps  at  night  the  owls  and  frogs  made 
plenty  of  music  for  us.  Such  was  my  life  for  several 
years. 

During  all  these  years  the  one  thing  uppermost  in 
my  mind  was  the  desire  to  attend  some  school,  but  I 
could  not  see  how  I  would  ever  be  able  to  do  so.  I 
had  heard  much  of  Talladega  College,  the  school  at 
Normal  and  the  state  school  at  Montgomery,  but  board 
at  these  schools  was  from  seven  to  eight  dollars  per 
month  and   this  had  to  be  paid  in  cash.     This,   of 


IN  THE  BLACK  BELT  17 

course,  would  keep  me  out,  as  I  could  never  see  how 
I  could  get  so  much  money. 

It  was  during  the  month  of  August  '87  that  I  first 
heard  of  Tuskegee.  There  was  a  revival  meeting  go- 
ing on  at  one  of  the  churches  at  Snow  Hill.  I  was 
determined  to  visit  this  meeting.  I  did  not  have  suit- 
able clothes,  neither  did  I  have  any  shoes,  so  my  peo- 
ple told  me  that  I  would  not  be  able  to  attend  church. 

I  had  not  been  to  church  in  seven  years,  and  I  was 
very  anxious  to  hear  some  preaching.  Notices  were 
sent  out  that  on  a  Wednesday  night  a  Presiding  Elder 
would  speak.  This  man  had  the  reputation  of  being 
a  great  preacher.  All  of  our  people  prepared  early, 
and  went  to  church.  When  I  thought  the  services  had 
begun,  I  too  went.  Though  I  was  far  from  being  well, 
I  did  not  have  much  trouble  in  reaching  there.  I  did 
not  go  in,  however,  but  went  around  to  the  rear  of  the 
church.  The  building  was  a  large,  box-like  cottage, 
and  contained  many  cracks.  One  could  hear  as  well 
on  the  outside  as  on  the  inside.  I  stood  directly  be- 
hind the  pulpit  and  heard  all  that  the  preacher  said. 

At  the  close  of  his  sermon  he  spoke  of  the  school  at 
Tuskegee,  where,  he  said,  poor  boys  and  girls  could 
go  without  money  and  without  price,  and  work  for  an 
education.  From  that  night  I  decided  to  go  to  Tuske- 
gee. Before  the  meeting  closed,  I  returned  home,  and 
when  the  others  got  there,  I  was  in  my  place  fast 
asleep.  I  wrote  Mr.  Washington  the  next  day,  and  he 
sent  me  a  catalogue  immediately. 


18  TWENTY-FIVE  YEARS 


CHAPTER  4. 

Life  at  Tuskegee. 

In  the  fall  of  '87  I  told  my  aunt  that  I  wanted  to  go 
to  Tuskegee  the  next  year,  and  that  in  addition  to  her 
little  farm,  I  wanted  to  rent  an  acre  of  land  and  work 
it  for  that  purpose.  She  encouraged  me  in  this  idea 
and  said  that  she  wished  so  much  that  she  could  do 
something  for  me  that  was  worth  while,  but  she  was 
poor  and  could  do  but  little,  as  she  was  now  well  ad- 
vanced in  years.  She  said,  however,  that  she  would 
help  me  to  work  my  patch. 

About  this  time  I  learned  that  my  brother  Washing- 
ton, who  had  been  away  for  a  number  of  years,  was 
living  at  Hazen,  Alabama,  about  fifty  miles  northeast 
of  Snow  Hill.  He  was  working  in  the  bridge-gang  on 
a  railroad  and  was  making  good  money.  I  learned 
also  that  my  father  and  sister  had  died  several  years 
before.  Now  as  there  were  but  two  of  us,  and  I  was 
cripple,  I  thought  that  I  would  write  my  brother  and 
get  him  to  help  me  go  to  Tuskegee.  So  I  started  out 
for  Hazen  and  reached  there  after  two  days'  journey 
on  foot.  My  brother  did  not  seem  to  care  for  me  and 
gave  me  no  encouragement  whatever.  This  was  a 
sore  disappointment  to  me  and  I  did  not  remain  there 
more  than  a  few  days.  I  returned  to  Snow  Hill  very 
much  discouraged,  but  the  warmth  with  which  my  old 


IN  THE  BLACK  BELT  19 

aunt  greeted  and  welcomed  me  back  home,  helped  me 
nrach. 

Soon  we  were  all  busy  getting  ready  to  plant  our 
little  farms.  That  year  there  were  four  of  us  still  liv- 
ing in  the  one  room  log  cabin,  my  aunt,  her  daughter, 
her  grandson  and  myself.  Each  of  us  had  a  little 
farm.  About  mid-summer  when  our  provisions  had 
given  out,  my  aunt's  daughter  and  her  son  mortgaged 
their  crops  for  something  to  eat,  and  wanted  that  we 
should  do  the  same,  but  I  would  not  agree  to  do  so. 
This,  of  course,  made  it  hard  for  me  to  get  anything 
to  eat.  My  cousin  and  her  son  were  perfectly  willing 
that  their  mother  and  grandmother  should  share 
in  their  provisions,  but  would  see  to  it  that  I  got  none. 
I  did  not  think  hard  of  them  for  this,  because  I  felt 
that  I  had  no  right  to  what  they  had.  I  continued  to 
live  on  water  and  bread,  and  sometimes  I  would  get  a 
little  milk  from  the  neighbors  as  I  had  formerly  done. 
I  asked  them,  however,  if  I  might  have  the  water  in 
which  they  boiled  their  vegetables  whenever  they  had 
a  boiled  dinner.  We  called  this  water  "pot  liquor." 
Of  course,  they  readily  consented  to  this  and  some- 
times I  would  get  enough  of  this  liquor  to  last  me  two 
or  three  days.  In  fact,  I  was  poorly  nourished  all  the 
time. 

About  this  time  someone  came  through  the  county 
selling  clocks,  on  condition  that  we  pay  for  them  later 
in  the  fall.  I  objected  to  this  but  the  other  members 
of  the  family  over-ruled  my  objections  and  the  clock 
was  bought  on  the  condition  stated  above.  The  clock 
cost  $12  and  each  of  us  agreed  to  pay  $3.00  each. 
When  the  time  came  to  pay  for  this  clock  no  one  had 


20  TWENTY-FIVE  YEARS 

any  money,  and  so  I  paid  what  I  had  saved  to  prepare 
myself  for  Tuskegee.  I  thought  now  that  I  would 
never  get  to  that  school  as  I  had  spent  most  of  my 
money  in  paying  for  a  worthless  clock.  However,  I 
picked  cotton  day  and  night  for  almost  two  weeks,  and 
succeeded  in  making  all  the  money  back  which  I  had 
spent  for  the  clock.  I  was  now  able  to  finish  paying 
Dr.  Keyser  and  get  a  few  clothes  and  start  for  Tuske- 
gee. For  a  long  time  the  people  in  the  quarter  did 
not  believe  that  I  was  going,  and  many  tried  to  dis- 
courage me.  Had  it  not  been  for  my  aunt's  encourag- 
ing words  and  sincere  efforts,  I  believe  that  I  could 
not  have  overcome  the  efforts  of  others  to  keep  me 
from  going.  When,  however,  they  all  found  that  I 
was  determined  to  go,  they  all  became  my  friends  and 
each  would  give  me  a  nickel  or  a  dime  to  help  me  off. 

The  night  before  I  left  for  Tuskegee,  one  of  the 
neighbors  told  me  that  while  he  did  not  have  anything 
to  give  me,  he  had  a  contract  to  get  a  cord  of  wood  to 
the  woodyard  for  the  train  by  six  o'clock  the  next 
morning  and  if  I  would  take  his  team  and  haul  it,  he 
would  give  me  one  dollar  for  my  services.  I  agreed 
to  do  it  and  at  two  o'clock  the  next  morning  I  was  at 
his  home  hitching  up  the  team  to  haul  the  wood.  I 
had  to  go  about  two  miles  for  the  wood  and  there  was 
a  very  heavy  frost  that  morning.  By  five  o'clock  I 
had  hauled  the  wood  and  had  the  team  back  to  my 
neighbor's  home  waiting  for  my  dollar.  I  thought 
this  to  be  the  coldest  morning  that  I  had  ever  experi- 
enced up  to  that  time.  I  then  got  my  few  things  to- 
gether and  was  off  for  school. 

I  reached  Tuskegee  the  first  day  of  '89.     I  found 


IN  THE  BLACK  BELT  21 

things  there  very  strange  indeed.  Hundreds  of  stu- 
dents were  going  to  and  fro.  Some  were  playing  foot- 
ball, others  were  having  band  practice,  and  still  others 
were  going  around  doing  nothing,  as  the  first  day  of 
the  New  Year  was  a  holiday.  I  was  placed  with  a 
crowd  of  boys  from  Pensacola,  Fla.  I  learned  after- 
wards that  they  were  the  roughest  boys  in  school. 
They  made  it  very  unpleasant  for  me,  so  much  so  that 
I  decided  to  return  home.  In  going  back  to  the  office 
I  met  Mr.  Washington  for  the  first  time.  He  wanted 
to  know  why  I  was  not  satisfied,  and  after  I  told  him 
my  troubles,  he  said  that  he  would  remedy  them.  I 
was  deeply  impressed  with  him  and  from  that  day  to 
this,  I  loved  him  as  a  father.  He  changed  my  room 
and  I  found  a  crowd  of  very  congenial  boys. 

The  next  ordeal  through  which  I  was  to  pass,  was 
going1  into  the  dining-room  and  using  knives  and 
forks,  but  I  avoided  all  humiliation  by  simply  watch- 
ing. I  have  made  it  a  rule  of  my  life  to  never  be  the 
first  to  try  new  things,  nor  the  last  to  lay  old  ones 
aside. 

After  supper,  I  was  worried  about  sleeping.  I  had 
heard  the  boys  talking  about  night  shirts  and  I  knew  I 
had  none;  in  fact,  I  did  not  know  their  purpose.  So 
when  time  came  to  retire,  one  of  the  boys  in  my  room: 
who  had  several,  gave  me  one,  then  I  was  undecided: 
just  whether  it  was  to  go  over  my  day  shirt  or  over  my 
undershirt,  but  I  did  not  want  to  ask  how  it  should! 
be  worn,  so  I  decided  to  sit  up  until  some  one  had  gone 
to  bed  and  by  watching  him  I  knew  I  would  learn  just 
how  to  use  mine.  In  this  way  I  came  through  all  right. 
The  habit  of  using  the  tooth-brush  was  not  so  hard. 


22  TWENTY-FIVE  YEARS 

The  next  day  the  regular  routine  work  of  the  school 
began  and  I  was  given  my  examination.  I  took  exam- 
ination for  the  B-Middle  class.  This  is  the  second 
year  normal.  Miss  Annie  C.  Hawley  of  Portland, 
Maine,  who  was  then  a  teacher  there,  gave  me  the  ex- 
amination. I  made  the  class  in  all  of  the  subjects  ex- 
cept grammar.  Of  this  subject  I  knew  absolutely 
nothing.  I  did  not  know  what  a  sentence  was.  I  could 
not  tell  the  subject  from  the  predicate,  so  I  was  put 
back  two  years  into  what  is  called  the  A-Prep.  class. 

After  my  examination  I  was  assigned  to  my  work. 
I  was  placed  in  the  tin  shop,  which  was  then  being 
placed  as  one  of  the  industries,  under  Mr.  Lewis 
Adams.  I  was  the  first  student  to  work  in  this  shop, 
but  it  did  not  take  two  days  to  learn  that  I  could 
never  be  a  tinsmith.  Next  I  was  assigned  to  the  print- 
ing office,  but  here  too  I  found  that  I  could  never  be- 
come a  printer;  so  finally,  I  was  put  on  the  farm  and 
there  I  remained  during  my  whole  stay  at  Tuskegee. 
The  farm  manager  at  that  time,  Mr.  C.  W.  Green,  had 
charge  of  the  brick-yard,  poultry,  dairy,  landscape 
gardening,  horticulture,  as  well  as  the  general  farm 
and  truck-farm.  I  worked  some  in  all  of  these  depart- 
ments and  enjoyed  my  work  immensely.  I  considered 
the  work  in  the  brick-yard  as  being  the  hardest  of  all 
and  that  was  the  only  work  which  I  could  not  do  with- 
out suffering  great  pain  because  of  my  physical  con- 
dition. Still  I  was  willing  to  endure  suffering  if  by 
so  doing  I  could  obtain  an  education. 

I  did  not  go  to  night  school  because  I  was  given  ex- 
tra work,  such  as  keeping  the  clocks  on  the  campus 
regulated  and  making  fires  in  the  girls'  buildings,  and 


IN  THE  BLACK  BELT  23 

too,  they  had  a  system  of  electric  bells  which  were 
used  for  the  passing  of  classes,  and  I  kept  these  in 
order.  In  this  way  I  worked  enough  each  month  to 
pay  my  board  and  stay  in  day  school.  Of  course,  I 
did  not  have,  or  get  any  money  for  my  work,  but  I 
did  not  worry  about  that.  Miss  Maggie  Murray  (af- 
terwards Mrs.  Washington)  kept  me  well  supplied 
with  clothes  from  the  supply  of  second  hand  garments 
which  came  to  the  school  from  northern  friends. 

The  remainder  of  the  time  that  I  was  at  Tuskegee 
was  spent  in  practically  the  same  way  that  I  have  al- 
ready described.  Many  of  the  students  would  com- 
plain about  the  food,  but  the  fact  that  I  was  getting 
three  regular  meals  a  day  was  enough  for  me.  And 
too,  I  was  now  sleeping  in  a  bed,  something  that  I 
seldom  had  done. 

When  burning  bricks  they  would  pay  students  cash 
for  working  at  night,  and  it  was  by  this  work  that  I 
got  a  little  money  now  and  then.  It  usually  takes 
from  seven  to  eight  days  to  burn  a  kiln  of  brick  and 
sometimes  I  would  work  every  night  until  the  kiln  had 
been  burned. 

The  one  thing  that  made  the  deepest  impression  on 
me  while  at  Tuskegee  was  Mr.  Washington's  Sunday 
evening  talks  to  the  students.  He  used  to  tell  us  that 
after  getting  our  education  we  should  return  to  our 
homes  and  there  help  the  people.  He  said  that  the 
people  were  supporting  Tuskegee  in  order  that  we 
might  be  able  to  help  the  masses  of  our  people.  I 
could  understand  every  word  he  said,  and  too,  I  felt 
always  that  he  was  talking  directly  to  me.  These 
talks  of  Dr.  Washington's  changed  the  course  of  my 


24  TWENTY-FIVE  YEARS 

whole  life  and  they  are  responsible  for  my  being  at 
the  Snow  Hill  School  today. 

It  was  when  I  reached  the  senior  class  that  I  came 
in  personal  touch  with  Dr.  Washington,  as  he  taught 
that  class  in  two  or  three  subjects.  Here  I  could 
study  him  as  I  was  never  able  to  do  before.  He  had 
a  thorough  grasp  upon  all  subjects  he  taught  and 
would  accept  nothing  but  the  same  from  his  students. 

As  the  time  was  nearing  for  my  graduation,  I  was 
deeply  worried  about  my  Commencement  suit.  All 
of  the  other  members  of  the  class  were  sending  home 
for  their  suits  or  for  the  money  with  which  to  get 
them,  but  I  knew  that  my  aunt  was  not  able  to  help 
me,  so  I  was  at  a  loss  to  know  where  I  should  get 
mine.  Finally,  I  decided  to  write  to  Mr.  R.  0. 
Simpson  of  Furman,  Alabama,  the  man  on  whose 
plantation  I  was  reared,  and  ask  him  to  loan  me  fif- 
teen dollars.  I  prayed  during  the  entire  time  it  took 
me  to  write  the  letter  and  when  I  had  sealed  it  I 
prayed  over  it  again.  In  two  days'  time  I  had  an  an- 
swer with  the  fifteen  dollars.  So  all  of  my  troubles 
and  worries  were  banished  and  I  proceeded  to  get 
ready  for  Commencement.  I  graduated  second,  with 
a  class  of  twenty,  on  May  17,  1893.  Our  class  motto 
was  "Deeds  Not  Words." 

The  morning  of  May  18th  found  me  packing  my 
few  clothes  in  an  old  trunk  which  one  of  the  young 
men  had  given  me,  and  getting  ready  to  return  to 
Snow  Hill.  All  the  while  I  was  thinking  of  what  I 
could  do  to  live  up  to  this  new  training  which  I  had 
received  at  Tuskegee,  and  above  all,  how  could  I  make 
good   our   class   motto:    u Deeds    Not  Words."     Al- 


IN  THE  BLACK  BELT  25 

though  it  has  been  now  well  nigh  25  years  since  my 
graduation,  those  words  still  ring  in  my  ears:  "Deeds 
Not  Words."  I  should  like  so  to  live  that  when  the 
summons  come  for  me  to  join  Dr.  Washington  in  the 
Great  Beyond,  these  words  might  be  written  as  an 
epitaph  on  my  tomb: 

"Deeds  Not  Words.' ' 


26  TWENTY-FIVE  YEARS 


CHAPTER  5. 

Recoistnoiteeing. 

When  I  returned  from  Tuskegee  on  the  19th  of 
May,  1893,  I  found  my  old  aunt,  her  daughter  and  her 
grandson  still  living  in  the  one-room  log  cabin  in 
which  I  had  left  them  four  and  a  half  years  before. 
Their  condition  was  much  the  same  as  when  I  left 
them.  My  first  work  was  to  build  another  end,  a  log 
pen,  to  the  one  room  cabin;  this  gave  us  two  rooms, 
something  we  never  had  before.  As  it  was  too  late 
for  me  to  pitch  a  crop,  I  worked  with  them  until  their 
crop  was  clean  of  weeds  and  then  I  went  from  farm  to 
farm  in  the  neighborhood,  helping  all  the  farmers  that 
I  could.  The  only  pay  I  received  was  three  meals  a 
day  wherever  I  worked.  I  usually  worked  from  one 
to  three  days  on  each  farm.  All  the  while  I  was  mak- 
ing a  close  study  of  the  people's  condition.  I  con- 
tinued working  in  this  way  until  I  was  convinced  that 
I  had  a  thorough  knowledge  of  their  condition.  I  then 
ventured  to  carry  the  investigation  into  other  sections 
of  Wilcox  County  and  the  adjoining  counties.  I 
visited  most  of  the  places  in  the  counties  of  Monroe, 
Butler,  Dallas  and  Lowndes.  These  constitute  most 
of  the  Black  Belt  counties  of  the  State.  I  made  the 
entire  journey  on  foot. 

It  was  a  bright  beautiful  morning  in  July  when  I 


IN  THE  BLACK  BELT  27 

started  from  my  home,  a  log  cabin.  More  than  two 
hundred  Negroes  were  in  the  nearby  fields  plowing 
corn,  hoeing  cotton  and  singing  those  beautiful  songs 
often  referred  to  as  plantation  melodies:  "I  am  go- 
ing to  roll  in  my  Jesus'  arms,"  "0,  Freedom,"  and 
" Before  I'd  be  a  Slave,  I'd  be  carried  to  my  Grave." 
With  the  beautiful  fields  of  corn  and  cotton  out- 
stretched before  me,  and  the  shimmering  brook  like  a 
silver  thread  twining  its  way  through  the  golden 
meadows,  and  then  through  verdant  fields,  giving 
water  to  thousands  of  creatures  as  it  passed,  I  felt 
that  the  earth  was  truly  clothed  in  His  beauty  and  the 
fulness  of  His  glory. 

But  I  had  scarcely  gone  beyond  the  limits  of  the 
field  when  I  came  to  a  thick  undergrowth  of  pines. 
Here  we  saw  old  pieces  of  timber  and  two  posts. 
"This  marks  the  old  cotton-gin  house,"  said  Uncle 
Jim,  my  companion,  and  then  his  countenance  grew 
sad;  after  a  sigh,  he  said:  "I  have  seen  many  a  Negro 
whipped  within  an  inch  of  his  life  at  these  posts.  I 
have  seen  them  whipped  so  badly  that  they  had  to  be 
carried  away  in  wagons.    Many  never  did  recover. ' ' 

From  this  our  road  led  first  up-hill,  then  down,  and 
finally  through  a  stretch  of  woods  until  we  reached 
Carlowville.  This  was  once  the  most  aristocratic 
village  of  the  Southern  part  of  Dallas  County.  Per- 
haps no  one  who  owned  less  than  a  hundred  slaves 
was  able  to  secure  a  home  within  its  borders.  Here 
still  are  to  be  seen  stately  mansions  and  among  the 
names  of  the  owners  are  those  of  Lyde,  Lee,  Wrumph, 
Bibb,  Youngblood  and  Reynolds.  Many  of  these 
mansions  have  been  partly  rebuilt  and  remodeled  to 


28  TWENTY-FIVE  YEAKS 

conform  to  modern  styles  of  architecture,  while  others 
have  been  deserted  and  are  now  fast  decaying. 
Usually  the  original  families  have  sold  out  or  many 
have  died  out. 

In  Carlowville  stands  the  largest  white  church  in 
Dallas  or  Wilcox  Counties.  It  has  a  seating  capacity 
of  1,000,  excluding  the  balcony,  which  during  slavery 
was  used  exclusively  for  the  Negroes  of  the  families 
attending. 

Our  stay  in  Carlowville  was  necessarily  short,  as 
the  evening  sun  was  low  and  the  nearest  place  for 
lodging  was  two  miles  ahead.  Before  reaching  this 
place  we  came  to  a  large  one-room  log  cabin,  30  by  36 
feet  on  the  road-side,  with  a  double  door  and  three 
holes  for  windows  cut  in  the  sides.  There  was  no 
chimney  nor  anything  to  show  that  the  room  could  be 
heated  in  cold  weather.  This  was  the  Hopewell  Bap- 
tist Church.  Here  five  hundred  members  congregated 
one  Sunday  in  each  month  and  spent  the  entire  day  in 
eating,  shouting,  and  praising  God  for  His  goodness 
toward  the  children  of  men.  Here  also  the  three 
months'  school  was  taught  during  the  winter.  A  few 
hundred  yards  beyond  this  church  brought  us  to  the 
home  of  a  Deacon  Jones.  He  was  living  in  the  house 
occupied  by  the  overseer  of  the  plantation  during 
slavery.  It  was  customary  for  Deacon  Jones  to  care 
for  strangers  who  chanced  to  come  into  the  commu- 
nity, especially  for  the  preachers  and  teachers.  So 
here  we  found  rest.  At  supper  Deacon  Jones  told  of 
the  many  preachers  he  had  entertained  and  their  fond- 
ness for  chicken. 

After  supper  I  spent  some  time  in  trying  to  find 


IN  THE  BLACK  BELT  29 

out  the  real  condition  of  the  people  in  this  section. 
Mr.  Jones  told  me  how  for  ten  years  he  had  been  try- 
ing to  buy  some  land,  and  had  been  kept  from  it  more 
than  once,  but  that  he  was  still  hopeful  of  getting  the 
right  deeds  for  the  land  for  which  he  had  paid.  He 
also  told  of  many  families  who  had  recently  moved 
into  this  community.  These  newcomers  had  made  a 
good  start  for  the  year  and  had  promising  crops,  but 
they  were  compelled  to  mortgage  their  growing  crops 
in  order  to  get  "advances"  for  the  year. 

When  asked  of  the  schools,  he  said  that  there  were 
more  than  five  hundred  children  of  school  age  in  his 
township,  but  not  more  than  two  hundred  of  these  had 
attended  school  the  previous  winter,  and  most  of  these 
for  a  period  not  longer  than  six  weeks.  He  also  said 
that  the  people  were  very  indifferent  as  to  the  neces- 
sity of  schoolhouses  and  churches.  Quite  a  few  who 
cleared  a  little  money  the  previous  year  had  spent  it 
all  in  buying  whiskey,  in  gambling,  in  buying  cheap 
jewelry,  and  for  other  useless  articles.  After  spend- 
ing two  hours  in  such  talk,  I  retired  for  the  evening. 
Thus  ended  the  first  day  of  my  search  for  first-hand 
information. 

Instead  of  going  farther  northward,  we  turned  our 
course  westward  for  the  town  of  Tilden,  which  is  only 
eight  miles  west  of  Snow  Hill.  The  road  from  Car- 
lowville  to  Tilden  is  somewhat  hilly,  but  a  very  pleas- 
ant one,  and  for  miles  the  large  oak  trees  formed  an 
almost  perfect  arch. 

On  reaching  Tilden  we  learned  that  there  would  be 
a  union  meeting  of  two  churches  that  night.  I  decided 
that  this  would  give  me  an  opportunity  to  study  the 


30  TWENTY-FIVE  YEARS 

religious  life  of  these  people  for  myself.  The  mem- 
bers of  churches  number  one  and  number  two  assem- 
bled at  their  respective  places  at  eight  o'clock.  The 
members  of  church  number  two  had  a  short  praise 
service  and  formed  a  line  of  procession  to  march  to 
church  number  one.  All  the  women  of  the  congrega- 
tion had  their  heads  bound  in  pieces  of  white  cloth, 
and  they  sang  peculiar  songs  as  they  marched.  When 
the  members  of  church  number  two  were  within  a  few 
hundred  yards  of  the  church  number  one,  the  singing 
then  alternated,  and  finally,  when  the  members  of 
church  number  two  came  to  church  number  one,  they 
marched  around  this  church  three  times  before  enter- 
ing it. 

After  entering  the  church,  six  sermons  were 
preached  to  the  two  congregations  by  six  different 
ministers,  and  at  least  three  of  these  could  not  read  a 
word  in  the  Bible.  Each  minister  occupied  at  least 
one  hour.  Their  texts  were  as  often  taken  from 
Webster's  blue-back  speller  as  from  the  Bible,  and 
sometimes  this  would  be  held  upside  down.  It  was 
about  two  o'clock  in  the  morning  when  the  services 
were  concluded.  Here,  again,  we  found  no  school- 
houses,  and  the  three  months'  school  had  been  taught 
in  one  of  the  little  churches. 

The  next  day  we  started  for  Camden,  a  distance  of 
sixteen  miles.  This  section  between  Tilden  and  Cam- 
den is  perhaps  the  most  fertile  section  of  land  in  the 
State  of  Alabama.  Taking  a  southwest  course  from 
Tilden,  I  crossed  into  Wilcox  County  again,  where  I 
saw  acres  of  corn  and  miles  of  cotton,  all  being  culti- 
vated by  Negroes. 


IN  THE  BLACK  BELT  31 

The  evening  was  far  advanced  when  we  reached 
Camden,  bnt  having  been  there  before,  we  had  no  dif- 
ficulty in  securing  lodging.  Camden  is  the  seat  of 
Wilcox  County,  and  has  a  population  of  about  three 
thousand.  The  most  costly  buildings  of  the  town  were 
the  courthouse  and  jail,  and  these  occupied  the  most 
conspicuous  places.  Here  great  crowds  of  Negroes 
would  gather  on  Saturdays  to  spend  their  earnings  of 
the  week  for  a  fine  breakfast  or  dinner  on  the  follow- 
ing Sunday,  or  for  useless  trivialities. 

On  Saturday  evenings,  on  the  roads  leading  to  and 
from  Camden,  as  from  other  towns,  could  be  seen 
groups  of  Negroes  gambling  here  and  there,  and  buy- 
ing and  selling  whiskey.  As  the  county  had  voted 
against  licensing  whiskey-selling,  this  was  a  violation 
of  the  law,  and  often  the  commission  merchant,  a  Ne- 
gro, was  imprisoned  for  the  offense,  while  those  who 
supplied  him  went  free. 

In  Camden  I  found  one  Negro  school-house;  this 
was  a  box-like  cottage,  20  by  16  feet,  and  was  sup- 
posed to  seat  more  than  one  hundred  students.  This 
school,  like  those  taught  in  the  churches,  was  opened 
only  three  months  in  the  year. 

After  a  two  days'  stay  in  Camden,  I  next  visited 
Miller's  Ferry  on  the  Alabama  Eiver,  twelve  miles 
west  of  Camden.  The  road  from  Camden  is  one  of  the 
best  roads  in  the  State,  and  for  miles  and  miles  one 
could  see  nothing  but  cotton  and  corn. 

At  Miller's  Ferry  a  Negro  school-house  of  ample 
proportions  had  been  built  on  Judge  Henderson's 
plantation.  Here  the  school  ran  several  months  in 
the  year,  and  the  colored  people  in  the  community 


32  TWENTY-FIVE  YEAES 

were  prosperous  and  showed  a  remarkable  degree  of 
intelligence.  Their  church  was  as  attractive  as  their 
school-house. 

Judge  Henderson  was  for  twelve  years  Probate 
Judge  of  Wilcox  County.  He  proved  to  be  one  of  the 
best  judges  this  county  has  ever  had,  and  even  unto 
this  day  he  is  admired  by  all,  both  white  and  black, 
rich  and  poor,  for  his  honesty,  integrity,  and  high 
sense  of  justice. 

From  Judge  Henderson's  place  we  traveled  south- 
ward to  Rockwest,  a  distance  of  more  than  fifteen 
miles.  During  this  journey  hundreds  of  Negroes  were 
seen  at  work  in  the  corn  and  cotton  fields.  These 
people  were  almost  wholly  ignorant,  as  they  had 
neither  schools  nor  teachers,  and  their  ministers  were 
almost  wholly  illiterate.  At  Rockwest  I  found  a  very 
intelligent  colored  man,  Mr.  Darrington,  who  had  at- 
tended school  at  Selma  for  a  few  years.  He  owned 
his  home  and  ran  a  small  grocery.  He  told  of  the 
hardships  with  which  he  had  to  contend  in  building 
up  his  business,  and  of  the  almost  hopeless  condition 
of  the  Negroes  about  there.  He  said  that  they  usually 
made  money  each  year,  but  that  they  did  not  know 
how  to  keep  it.  The  merchants  would  induce  them 
to  buy  buggies,  machines,  clocks,  etc.,  but  would  never 
encourage  them  to  buy  homes.  We  were  very  much 
pleased  with  the  reception  which  Mr.  Darrington  gave 
us,  and  felt  very  much  like  putting  into  practice  our 
State  motto,  "Here  We  Rest,"  at  his  home,  but  our 
objective  point  for  the  day  was  Fatama,  sixteen  miles 
away. 

On  our  journey  that  afternoon  we  saw  hundreds  of 


IN  THE  BLACK  BELT  33 

Negro  one-room  log  cabins.  Some  of  these  were  lo- 
cated in  the  dense  swamps  and  some  on  the  hills,  while 
others  were  miles  away  from  the  public  road.  Most 
of  these  people  had  never  seen  a  locomotive. 

We  reached  Fatama  about  seven  o'clock  that  night, 
and  here  for  the  first  time  we  were  compelled  to  divide 
our  crowd  in  order  to  get  a  night's  lodging.  Each  of 
us  had  to  spend  the  night  in  a  one-room  cabin.  It  was 
my  privilege  to  spend  the  night  with  Uncle  Jake,  a 
jovial  old  man,  a  local  celebrity.  After  telling  him  of 
our  weary  journey,  he  immediately  made  preparation 
for  me  to  retire.  This  was  done  by  cutting  off  my 
bed  from  the  remainder  of  the  cabin  by  hanging  up  a 
sheet  on  a  screen.  While  somewhat  inconvenient,  my 
rest  that  night  was  pleasant,  and  the  next  morning 
found  me  very  much  refreshed  and  ready  for  an- 
other day's  journey.  Our  company  assembled  at 
Uncle  Jake's  for  breakfast,  after  which  we  started 
for  Pineapple. 

We  found  the  condition  of  the  Negroes  between 
Fatama  and  Pineapple  much  the  same  as  that  of  those 
we  had  seen  the  previous  day.  No  school-house  was 
to  be  seen,  but  occasionally  we  would  see  a  church  at 
the  cross-roads.  We  reached  Pineapple  late  in  the 
afternoon. 

From  Pineapple  we  went  to  Greenville,  and  from 
Greenville  to  Fort  Deposit,  and  from  Fort  Deposit 
we  returned  to  Snow  Hill,  after  having  traveled  a 
distance  of  157  miles  and  visiting  four  counties. 

In  three  of  these  counties  there  was  a  colored  pop- 
ulation of  42,810  between  the  ages  of  five  and  twenty 
years,  and  a  white  population  of  7,608  of  the  same 


34  TWENTY-FIVE  YEARS 

ages.  The  Negro  school  population  of  Wilcox  and 
the  seven  adjoining  counties  was  11,623.  Speaking 
of  public  schools  in  the  sense  that  educators  use  the 
term,  the  colored  people  in  this  section  had  none.  Of 
course,  there  were  so-called  public  schools  here  and 
there,  running  from  three  to  five  months  in  the  year 
and  paying  the  teachers  from  $7.50  to  $18  per  month. 
Our  trip  through  this  section  revealed  the  follow- 
ing facts:  (1)  That  while  many  opportunities  were 
denied  our  people,  they  abused  many  privileges;  (2) 
that  there  was  a  colored  population,  in  this  section 
visited,  of  more  than  200,000  and  a  school  population 
of  85,499;  (3)  that  the  people  were  ignorant  and  su- 
perstitious; (4)  that  the  teachers  and  preachers  for 
the  most  part,  were  of  the  same  condition;  (5)  that 
there  were  no  public  or  private  libraries  and  reading- 
rooms  to  which  they  had  access;  (6)  that,  strictly 
speaking,  there  were  no  public  schools  and  only  one 
private  one.  Now,  what  can  be  expected  of  any  people 
in  such  a  condition?  Can  the  blind  lead  the  blind? 
They  could  not  in  the  days  of  old,  and  it  is  not  likely 
that  they  can  now. 


IN  THE  BLACK  BELT  35 


CHAPTER  6. 

Founding  the  Snow  Hill,  School. 

After  this  trip  through  the  " Black  Belt"  I  was 
more  convinced  than  ever  before  of  the  great  need 
of  an  Industrial  School  in  the  very  midst  of  these  peo- 
ple; a  school  that  would  correct  the  erroneous  ideas 
the  people  held  of  education;  a  school  that  would  put 
most  stress  upon  the  things  which  the  people  were 
most  likely  to  have  to  do  with  through  life;  a  school 
that  would  endeavor  to  make  education  practical 
rather  than  theoretical ;  a  school  that  would  train  men 
and  women  to  be  good  workers,  good  leaders,  good 
husbands,  good  wives,  and  finally  train  them  to  be  fit 
citizens  of  the  State  and  proper  subjects  for  the  King- 
dom of  God. 

With  this  idea  the  Snow  Hill  Normal  and  Industrial 
Institute  was  started  twenty-five  years  ago  in  an  old 
dilapidated  one-room  log  cabin  with  one  teacher  and 
three  students,  with  no  State  appropriation,  and  with- 
out any  church  or  society  responsible  for  one  dollar 
of  its  expenses.  Aside  from  this  unfortunate  state  of 
affairs,  the  condition  of  the  people  was  miserable. 
This  was  due  partly  to  poor  crops  and  partly  to  bad 
management  on  their  part. 

In  many  instances  the  tenants  were  not  only  unable 
to  pay  their  debts,  but  were  also  unable  to  pay  their 
rents.  In  a  few  cases  the  landlords  had  to  provide  at 
their  own  expense  provisions  for  their  tenants.    This 


36  TWENTY-FIVE  YEARS 

was  simply  another  way  of  establishing  soup-houses 
on  the  plantations.  The  idea  of  buying  land  was  for- 
eign to  all  of  them,  and  there  were  not  more  than 
twenty  acres  of  land  owned  by  the  colored  people  in 
this  whole  neighborhood.  The  churches  and  schools 
were  practically  closed,  while  crime  and  immorality 
were  rampant.  The  carrying  of  men  and  women  to 
the  chain-gang  was  a  frequent  occurrence.  These  peo- 
ple believed  that  the  end  of  education  was  to  free  their 
children  from  manual  labor. 

They  were  much  opposed  to  industrial  education. 
When  the  school  was  started,  many  of  the  parents 
came  to  school  and  forbade  our  " working"  their  chil- 
dren, stating  as  their  objection  that  their  children  had 
been  working  all  their  lives  and  that  they  did  not  mean 
to  send  them  to  school  to  learn  to  work.  Not  only  did 
they  forbid  our  having  their  children  work,  but  many 
took  their  children  out  of  school  rather  than  allow 
them  to  do  so.  A  good  deal  of  this  opposition  was 
kept  up  by  illiterate  preachers  and  incompetent  teach- 
ers, who  had  not  had  any  particular  training  for  their 
profession.  In  fact,  ninety-eight  per  cent  of  them 
had  attended  no  school.  We  continued,  however,  to 
keep  the  "Industrial  Plank"  in  our  platform,  and 
year  after  year  some  industry  was  added  until 
we  now  have  fourteen  industries  in  constant  operation. 
Agriculture  is  the  foremost  and  basic  industry  of  the 
institution.  We  do  this  because  we  are  in  a  farming 
section  and  ninety-five  per  cent  of  the  people  depend 
upon  agriculture  for  a  livelihood. 


IN  THE  BLACK  BELT  37 


CHAPTER  7. 
Small  Beginnings. 

The  early  years  of  the  school  were  indeed  trying 
ones.  There  are  however  in  all  communities  persons 
whose  hearts  are  in  the  right  place.  I  found  it  so  in 
this  case,  for  while  there  were  many  who  opposed  the 
industrial  idea,  there  were  those  who  stood  for  it  and 
held  up  our  arms.  I  refer  to  that  noble  class  of  old 
colored  men  who  always  seek  for  truth.  The  men  who 
stood  so  loyally  by  me  in  the  founding  of  the  school 
were  Messrs.  Frank  Warren,  Willis  McCants,  Ellis 
Johnson,  John  Thomas,  Isaac  Johnson,  Tom  Johnson 
and  P.  J.  Gaines.  These  men  and  their  wives  were 
ready  at  every  call.  They  gave  suppers,  fairs  and 
picnics  as  well  as  other  entertainments  to  raise  money 
for  the  school.  Not  only  would  they  help  in  the  rais- 
ing of  money,  but  they  would  come  to  the  school  and 
work  for  days  without  thinking  of  any  pay  for  their 
work.  When  we  got  ready  to  put  up  a  new  building, 
we  would  have  what  we  called  a  house-raising  and 
would  invite  all  the  men  in  the  neighborhood  to  come 
out  and  help  us.  On  these  days  the  wives  of  these 
men  would  compete  with  each  other  to  see  who  could 
bring  out  the  best  basket. 

At  the  end  of  the  first  school  year  it  was  clearly 
seen  that  we  needed  two  assistant  teachers;  but  the 


38  TWENTY-FIVE  YEARS 

question  that  puzzled  us  was,  where  could  they  work. 
We  had  only  one  room  and  none  of  us  had  the  money 
to  buy  the  lumber  needed.  But  there  was  a  saw-mill 
near  by  and  finally  I  sought  work  at  this  mill  with  the 
understanding  that  I  would  take  my  pay  in  lumber 
if  the  people  would  agree  to  feed  me.  This  they  read- 
ily consented  to  do.  So  I  worked  during  May,  June, 
July  and  August  at  the  saw-mill  and  took  my  wages  in 
lumber.  This  enabled  us  to  get  sufficient  material  to 
erect  two  of  the  rooms  of  our  present  Training  Build- 
ing. The  following  October  we  opened  school  with 
three  teachers  and  150  students.  These  two  teachers 
had  graduated  at  Tuskegee  with  me  in  '93.  They 
were  Misses  Ophelia  Clopton  and  Rosa  Bradford. 
They  spent  four  years  in  the  work  here  and  we  never 
had  two  teachers  who  did  more  for  the  old  people  in 
the  community  and  who  were  loved  more  by  them. 

In  the  fall  of  '95  Mr.  Barnes,  who  was  also  a  mem- 
ber of  the  class  of  '93,  joined  us,  and  has  been  con- 
nected with  the  school  since  then  except  for  two  years 
which  he  spent  in  Boston. 

In  the  fall  of  '96  another  one  of  our  class-mates, 
Julius  Webster,  a  carpenter,  joined  in  our  work  here. 
We  now  had  five  teachers,  all  of  Tuskegee  and  all 
class-mates.  I  can  never  forget  these  old  people  and 
these  early  teachers,  for  we  all  shared  our  many  sor- 
rows and  our  few  joys.  No  work  was  too  hard  for  us 
and  no  sacrifice  was  too  great. 

Another  Tuskegee  student  was  with  us  almost  from 
the  beginning.  While  Mr.  Rivers  did  not  graduate 
from  the  Academic  Department  at  Tuskegee,  he  fin- 
ished his  trade,  Agriculture,  there.     Mr.  Rivers  has 


IN  THE  BLACK  BELT  39 

had  charge  of  our  farm  off  and  on  since  '95.  I  should 
say  to  his  credit  that  he  is  in  charge  today  and  last 
year  he  made  the  best  crop  the  school  has  ever  made. 

Thus  far,  I  have  spoken  of  the  assistance  given  me 
by  the  colored  people  and  teachers,  but  no  chapter 
about  the  founding  of  Snow  Hill  Institute  would  be 
complete  without  a  mention  of  Mr.  R.  0.  Simpson,  the 
white  man  on  whose  plantation  I  was  reared.  Mr. 
Simpson  must  have  known  me  from  my  birth.  I  well 
remember  that  in  '78  and  '79  he  used  to  stop  by  to  see 
my  old  grandmother  when  riding  over  his  plantation. 
I  think  that  my  grandmother  prepared  meals  for  him 
on  some  of  these  visits  to  the  plantation.  I  also  re- 
member that  after  the  death  of  grandmother,  when 
I  was  sick  and  living  with  my  aunt  Eina,  some  days 
he  would  see  me  lying  on  the  roadside  and  would  toss 
me  a  coin. 

On  my  return  from  Tuskegee  I  found  Mr.  Simpson 
deeply  interested  in  the  welfare  of  my  people ;  in  fact, 
it  seemed  as  if  he  was  looking  for  some  one  to  start 
an  industrial  school  upon  his  place.  We  had  many 
talks  together.  When  he  found  out  that  I  had  re- 
turned to  cast  my  lot  with  my  people,  he  seemed  highly 
pleased  and  said  that  he  would  give  a  few  acres  for 
the  school  if  I  thought  I  could  use  it  to  advantage.  I 
decided  that  this  was  my  opportunity  and  told  him 
that  I  could.  He  first  gave  seven  .  acres,  and  then 
thirty-three,  and  finally  sixty  more,  making  in  all  one 
hundred  acres  that  he  gave  the  school.  In  later  years 
we  bought  one-half  of  his  plantation,  making  in  all 
nearly  two  thousand  acres.  While  all  of  the  white 
people  in  Snow  Hill  have  been  friendly  towards  the 


40  TWENTY-FIVE  YEARS 

work,  I  have  found  Mr.  Simpson  and  his  entire  family 
to  be  our  particular  friends  and  I  have  yet  to  go  to 
them  for  a  favor  and  be  refused. 

One  of  the  cardinal  points  in  Dr.  Washington's 
Sunday  evening  talks  to  the  students  and  teachers  at 
Tuskegee  was  that  they  should  buy  homes  of  their 
own.  I  felt  that  the  best  way  to  teach  the  people  to 
get  a  home  was  for  me  to  own  one  myself.  I  thought 
that  it  would  be  useless  for  me  to  talk  to  them  about 
buying  homes  as  long  as  I  did  not  have  one  for  my- 
self, so  I  secured  a  home. 

After  the  school  was  thoroughly  planted  and  I  had 
bought  and  paid  for  my  home,  we  began  to  encourage 
the  people  to  buy  homes.  This  was  done  through 
several  agencies,  the  Negro  Farmers  Conference,  the 
Workers  Conference  and  the  Black-Belt  Improve- 
ment Society.  The  aim  of  this  Society  is  clearly  set 
forth  in  its  constitution,  a  part  of  which  is  as  follows  : 

(1)  This  society  shall  be  known  as  the  Black  Belt 
Improvement  Society.  Its  object  shall  be  the  general 
uplift  of  the  people  of  the  Black  Belt  of  Alabama;  to 
make  them  better  morally,  mentally,  spiritually,  and 
financially. 

(2)  It  shall  further  be  the  object  of  the  Black  Belt 
Improvement  Society  as  far  as  possible,  to  eliminate 
the  credit  system  from  our  social  fabric;  to  stimulate 
in  all  members  the  desire  to  raise,  as  far  as  possible, 
all  their  food  supplies  at  home,  and  pay  cash  for  what- 
ever may  be  purchased  at  the  stores. 

(3)  To  bring  about  a  system  of  co-operation  in  the 
purchase  of  what  supplies  cannot  be  raised  at  home 
wherever  it  can  be  done  to  advantage. 


IN  THE  BLACK  BELT  41 

(4)  To  discuss  topics  of  interest  to  the  communi- 
ties in  which  the  various  societies  may  be  organized, 
and  topics  relating  to  the  general  welfare  of  the  race, 
and  especially  to  farmers. 

(5)  To  teach  the  people  to  practice  the  strictest 
economy,  and  especially  to  obtain  and  diffuse  such 
information  among  farmers  as  shall  lead  to  the  im- 
provement and  diversification  of  crops,  in  order  to 
create  in  farmers  a  desire  for  homes  and  better  home 
conditions,  and  to  stimulate  a  love  for  labor  in  both 
old  and  young.  Each  local  organization  may  offer 
small  prizes  for  the  cleanest  and  best-kept  house,  the 
best  pea-patch,  and  the  best  ear  of  corn,  etc. 

(6)  To  aid  each  other  in  sickness  and  in  death;  for 
this  purpose  a  fee  of  ten  cents  will  be  collected  from 
each  member  every  month  and  held  sacred  to  be  used 
for  no  other  purpose  whatever. 

(7)  It  shall  be  one  of  the  great  objects  of  this  so- 
ciety to  stimulate  its  members  to  acquire  homes,  and 
urge  those  who  already  possess  homes  to  improve  and 
beautify  them. 

(8)  To  urge  our  members  to  purchase  only  the 
things  that  are  absolutely  necessary. 

(9)  To  exert  our  every  effort  to  obliterate  those 
evils  which  tend  to  destroy  our  character  and  our 
homes,  such  as  intemperance,  gambling,  ,and  social 
impurity. 

(10)  To  refrain  from  spending  money  and  time 
foolishly  or  in  unprofitable  ways;  to  take  an  interest 
in  the  care  of  our  highways,  in  the  paying  of  our  taxes 
and  the  education  of  our  children ;  to  plant  shade  trees, 
repair  our  yard  fences,  and  in  general,  as  far  as  pos- 


42  TWENTY-FIVE  YEARS 

sible,  bring  our  home  life  up  to  the  highest  standard 
of  civilization. 

This  Society  has  standing  committees  on  Govern- 
ment, on  Education,  on  Business,  on  Housekeeping, 
on  Labor,  and  on  Farming.  The  chairman  of  each  of 
these  committees  holds  monthly  meetings  in  the  va- 
rious communities,  at  which  time  various  topics  per- 
taining to  the  welfare  and  uplift  of  the  people  are  dis- 
cussed. As  a  result  of  these  meetings  the  people  re- 
turn to  their  homes  with  new  inspiration.  The  meet- 
ings are  doing  good  in  the  communities  where  they  are 
being  held,  and  our  sincere  hope  is  that  such  meetings 
may  be  extended.  It  is  the  aim  of  the  school  and  of 
its  several  organizations,  to  reach  the  ills  that  most 
retard  the  Negroes  of  the  rural  South.  The  articles 
of  our  simple  constitution  go  to  the  very  bottom  of 
the  conditions. 

Thus  it  will  be  seen  that  the  work  of  the  class-room 
is  only  a  small  part  of  what  we  are  trying  to  do  for 
the  uplift  of  the  Negro  people  in  the  Black  Belt. 


IN  THE  BLACK  BELT  43 


CHAPTER  8. 
Campaigning  for  Funds  in  the  North. 

The  matter  of  raising  money  for  undenominational 
schools  in  the  South  is  no  easy  task,  and  right  here 
I  ought  to  state  just  why  I  preferred  to  have  such  a 
school.  Our  people  in  the  rural  South  are  mostly 
Baptists  and  Methodists,  and  of  course  the  denomi- 
nations have  their  schools,  located  in  certain  cities. 
While  no  one  is  barred  from  these  schools,  it  is  a  fact 
that  undue  influence  is  exerted  upon  the  pupils  to 
make  them  become  members  of  the  church  that  sup- 
ports the  school.  This  is  not  only  true  of  the  Metho- 
dist and  Baptist  schools,  but  is  also  true  of  all  de- 
nominational schools  in  the  South.  I  did  not  like  that 
and  our  people  do  not  like  to  have  any  one  influence 
their  children  to  join  churches  other  than  the  one  of 
their  choice.  We  may  shut  our  eyes  to  this  truth,  but 
the  fact  remains  that  Methodists  do  not  want  their 
children  to  be  persuaded  to  join  some  other  church, 
neither  do  the  Baptists  want  theirs  taken  away  from 
them. 

Now,  I  wanted  that  my  school  should  be  free  from 
such  "isms."  I  wanted  a  school  for  all  the  Negroes, 
thoroughly  religious  in  its  spirit,  but  entirely  unde- 
nominational. For  twenty-five  years  now  we  have  ad- 
hered strictly  to  this  policy.     Many  times  when  all 


44  TWENTY-FIVE  YEARS 

was  dark  and  there  seemed  to  be  no  way,  some  of 
these  denominations  would  come  and  offer  me  the 
money  to  run  the  work,  provided  I  would  accept  their 
faith.  But  this  I  have  never  done,  I  had  rather  that 
the  work  should  die  than  to  sell  my  principle  for 
money.  I  repeat  that  raising  money  for  such  a  school 
is  a  hard  task.  I  have  never  been  particularly  inter- 
ested as  to  the  choice  of  the  church  that  my  students 
make,  but  I  have  been  profoundly  interested  in  their 
finding  salvation. 

A  great  many  people  to  whom  I  appeal  for  aid  from 
time  to  time,  tell  me  that  they  give  all  their  alms 
through  their  church.  But  in  spite  of  all  this,  I  feel 
that  the  kind  of  schools  most  needed  for  our  people, 
should  be  broad  and  not  narrow,  deep  and  not  shallow. 

After  winning  the  approval  of  the  people  in  the 
community,  both  black  and  white,  and  getting  what- 
ever help  I  could  from  them,  my  thoughts  turned 
towards  the  North  for  means  to  run  the  work.  My 
first  attempt  was  in  March,  '97.  I  got  as  far  as  Wash- 
ington, D.  C,  and  saw  the  Inauguration  of  President 
McKinley,  and  then  I  returned  home. 

The  following  June  Dr.  Washington  wrote  me  to 
come  to  Tuskegee  so  as  to  accompany  the  Tuskegee 
Quartet  North  that  summer.  It  must  not  be  under- 
stood that  I  was  one  of  the  singers;  that  was  not  my 
good  fortune.  I  was  to  tell  what  Tuskegee  had  done 
for  me  and  was  to  show  in  turn  what  I  was  trying  to 
do  for  my  people.  Dr.  Washington  reasoned  in  this 
way  I  would  have  a  chance  to  meet  some  of  the 
best  people  of  the  country  and  thereby  gain  support 
for  my  work.    There  was  to  be  no  collection  taken  f 01 


IN  THE  BLACK  BELT  45 

Snow  Hill,  but  those  who  became  interested  wonld 
often  come  up  after  the  meetings  and  give  me  some- 
thing for  my  work. 

We  left  Tuskegee  about  the  first  of  July.  "We  spent 
most  of  the  month  of  July  in  the  southeastern  part 
of  Massachusetts,  known  as  the  Cape  and  South  Shore. 
We  had  meetings  at  most  of  the  churches  and  resorts 
in  that  section.  Dr.  Washington  himself  met  us  at 
the  most  prominent  places. 

In  August  we  came  to  Boston  and  from  there  went 
up  the  North  Shore.  This  was  my  first  visit  to  Bos- 
ton and  it  was  here  that  I  met  Miss  Susan  D.  Mes- 
singer  and  her  brother  William  S.  Messinger.  Their 
home  was  at  81  Walnut  Avenue,  Roxbury,  Mass. 
Miss  Messinger  had  been  an  abolitionist.  Both  she 
and  her  brother  were  deeply  interested  in  the  welfare 
of  my  people.  They  listened  attentively  to  my  story 
and  from  that  day  became  my  best  friends. 

Although  I  have  been  going  North  now  for  twenty 
years,  I  have  never  met  such  welcome  as  was  shown 
me  at  their  home.  I  think  I  have  never  met  such 
Christ-like  people  anywhere.  It  was  largely  through 
Miss  Messinger 's  appeals  in  the  "Transcript"  that 
the  people  of  Boston  and  New  England  learned  of  our 
work  at  the  Snow  Hill  Institute.  Through  her  ap- 
peals from  time  to  time,  we  raised  much  money  for 
our  school.  I  cannot,  in  words,  express  the  valuable 
aid  these  people  gave  us  in  our  work.  Sometimes 
when  I  had  worked  hard  all  day  with  poor  results,  I 
would  go  to  their  home  in  the  evening  discouraged 
and  low-spirited,  but  would  always  find  there  a  hearty 
welcome  and  a  word  of  cheer.    I  would  always  leave 


46  TWENTY-FIVE  YEARS 

with  new  zeal  and  fresh  courage.  Their  home  has 
been  to  me  a  home  now  for  twenty  years  and  although 
they  are  now  dead,  I  never  go  to  Boston  but  that  I  find 
time  to  go  out  to  Mt.  Auburn  and  put  a  fresh  flower 
on  their  graves.  The  old  home  is  lonely  now,  but  the 
Messinger  spirit  still  abides  there  in  the  person  of 
Mr.  Reed,  their  nephew.  I  still  receive  from  him  the 
hearty  welcome  and  support  that  they  used  to  give  in 
days  of  old. 

Another  friend  whom  I  met  that  summer  was  Mrs. 
J.  S.  Howe  of  Brookline  (now  Mrs.  Herman  F.  Vick- 
ery).  She  became  interested  in  our  work  through 
Miss  Messinger  and  from  that  time  to  this  her  inter- 
est has  steadily  grown.  Had  it  not  been  for  the  en- 
couragement and  aid  received  from  the  Messingers 
and  Mrs.  Howe  on  this  trip,  I  am  sure  that  I  should 
have  given  up  the  struggle. 

After  leaving  Boston,  the  Tuskegee  singers  went  up 
the  North  Shore  and  on  to  the  Isles  of  Shoals.  There 
we  had  a  very  good  meeting,  and  as  Mr.  Washington 
could  not  be  present,  I  was  the  principal  speaker. 
The  people  were  greatly  interested  in  what  I  said  and 
although  we  took  up  a  good  collection  for  Tuskegee, 
my  private  collection  was  equally  large.  This  the 
leader  of  the  quartet  did  not  like.  It  was  the  duty  of 
this  man  who  was  a  teacher  at  Tuskegee,  to  speak  as 
well  as  myself,  but  for  some  reason  he  did  not  like  to 
do  it  and  would  always  shirk  it  when  he  could.  But 
after  this  meeting  he  cut  off  my  support  and  when  we 
reached  Portsmouth,  he  told  me  that  I  was  dividing 
the  interest  and  that  he  could  not  use  me  further  on 
that  trip.     Of  course,  what  little  money  I  had  been 


IN  THE  BLACK  BELT  47 

getting  I  had  sent  to  the  school,  so  I  was  almost  pen- 
niless when  he  turned  me  off.  I  ought  to  say,  how- 
ever, that  he  gave  me  my  fare  back  to  Boston. 
I  reached  Boston  that  night  about  eight  o'clock  with 
no  money  and  nowhere  to  go,  but  finally,  I  went  to  the 
place  where  we  had  stopped  when  the  quartet  was  in 
Boston  and  I  found  R.  W.  Taylor,  who  at  the  time 
was  financial  agent  in  the  North  for  Tuskegee.  He 
saw  that  I  was  discouraged  and  insisted  that  I  tell  him 
why  I  had  come  back  to  Boston.  When  he  had  learned 
the  facts  he  told  his  landlady  to  provide  lodging  and 
board  for  me  at  his  expense  until  I  could  do  better. 

It  was  some  time  before  Dr.  Washington  found  out 
that  I  was  not  with  the  quartet,  and  as  soon  as  he 
knew  it,  he  wrote  me  to  meet  him  at  Lake  Mohonk, 
N.  Y.  When  the  leader  of  the  quartet  found  out  that 
I  was  to  be  at  Lake  Mohonk,  he  tried  to  interfere  so 
as  to  prohibit  my  going  there,  but  when  Dr.  Washing- 
ton said  a  thing,  it  had  to  be  done,  and  I  went  to  Lake 
Mohonk  and  I  met  the  quartet  again;  also  Dr.  Wash- 
ington. We  had  a  great  meeting  at  Lake  Mohonk  and 
after  the  meeting  Mr.  and  Mrs.  S.  P.  Avery,  who  were 
guests  there,  gave  me  $200.  From  here  we  returned 
South  and  reached  Tuskeegee  about  the  first  of  Sep- 
tember.   From  there  I  returned  to  Snow  Hill. 

My  trip  North  during  the  summer  of  '98  was  very 
much  saddened  by  the  illness  and  death  of  my  aunt 
Rina  Rivers,  whom  I  had  learned  to  love  as  a  mother, 
and  to  whom  I  always  feel  that  I  owe  my  life,  for 
had  it  not  been  for  the  care  she  gave  me  during 
my  sickness,  I  could  not  have  stood  the  ordeal.  Her 
death  came  while  I  was  in  Boston  and  without  suf- 


48  TWENTY-FIVE  YEAES 

ficient  funds  to  take  me  either  to  her  bed-side  or  to 
her  funeral.  This  incident  in  my  life  has  always  been 
a  cause  for  deep  sorrow  and  as  the  years  go  by  I  feel 
it  more  keenly.  I  had  always  hoped  that  she  could 
have  lived  until  I  could  make  her  life  happy,  but  this 
pleasure  has  been  forever  denied  me.  However  she 
left  behind  four  daughters  and  many  grandchildren 
and  I  have  tried  to  be  unusually  kind  to  them  because 
of  my  great  love  for  their  mother  and  grandmother. 
Again  this  was  a  hard  year  because  of  the  Spanish 
War  and  the  consequent  excitement. 

I  returned  to  Snow  Hill  early  in  the  fall,  cast  down, 
but  not  destroyed.  I  had  to  adjust  myself  to  the  loss 
of  my  best  earthly  friend.  In  the  meantime,  our  en- 
rollment was  constantly  increasing  and  new  teachers 
and  industries  were  being  added  from  year  to  year. 

My  campaign  in  the  North  during  the  summer  of 
1899  was  made  alone,  just  as  the  previous  one  had 
been.  I  got  much  needed  experience  during  this  sum- 
mer. 

In  this  house-to-house  campaign  for  money,  one 
must  expect  many  rebuffs,  but  on  the  other  hand  one 
meets  some  of  the  finest  people  that  have  ever  lived. 
I  find,  however,  that  as  I  grow  older  the  strain  is 
harder.  I  don't  think  that  I  am  a  very  successful 
money  raiser.  However,  on  April  5th,  1906,  at  the 
25th  anniversary  of  Tuskegee,  I  delivered  an  address 
that  interested  Mr.  Andrew  Carnegie  and  he  gave  the 
Snow  Hill  Institute  ten  thousand  dollars.  (See  Ap- 
pendix. ) 


7    !  ' 


IN  THE  BLACK  BELT  49 


CHAPTER  9. 

Results. 

In  the  preceding  chapters  I  have  tried  in  a  plain  and 
practical  way  to  tell  the  story  of  my  life  and  struggle 
for  twenty-five  years.  I  now  purpose  to  tell  some  re- 
sults of  this  effort. 

We  started  our  work  with  no  land,  no  building,  and 
no  assurance  of  any  support  from  any  source.  In 
fact,  we  rented  an  old  log  cabin  in  which  to  begin  our 
work.  On  the  first  day  of  opening,  we  had  one 
teacher,  three  pupils  and  fifty  cents  in  money,  a  pretty 
small  capital  with  which  to  build  a  Normal  and  Indus- 
trial Institute.  As  I  now  look  back  on  this  early  ad- 
venture of  mine,  I  am  amazed  at  the  undertaking. 
Although  penniless  and  almost  without  a  place  to  rest 
my  head,  I  had  an  abundance  of  hope  and  great  faith 
in  God.  These  have  always  been  my  greatest  assets 
in  this  work.  The  people  in  the  community  were 
equally  poor;  not  more  than  ten  acres  of  land  were 
owned  by  the  colored  people  within  a  radius  of  ten 
miles,  and  there  was  even  a  mortgage  on  these  ten 
acres.  The  homes  of  the  people  consisted  chiefly  of 
one-room  and  two-room  log  cabins.  There  was  not  a 
single  glass  window  to  be  found.  I  remember  that 
shortly  after  the  founding  of  the  school  a  Negro  built 
a  house  and  fitted  it  up  with  glass  windows  and  peo- 
ple would  go  ten  miles  to  see  it. 


50  TWENTY-FIVE  YEARS 

The  economic  condition  of  the  people  was  deplor- 
able. They  all  carried  heavy  mortgages  from  year 
to  year.  These  mortgages  ranged  all  the  way  from 
$100  to  $1500.  The  people  were  thoroughly  discour- 
aged, and  seemingly  had  lost  all  hopes.  Everywhere 
in  their  religious  services,  they  sang  this  song:  "You 
may  have  all  the  world,  but  give  me  Jesus."  The 
white  man  was  taking  them  at  their  word  and  giving 
them  all  of  Jesus,  but  none  of  the  world.  So  dis- 
heartened were  the  people  that  when  Mr.  Simpson 
offered  to  give  us  the  first  seven  acres  of  land  for  the 
school,  many  tried  to  prevail  with  him  not  to  do  so, 
saying  that  they  did  not  want  any  land.  But  as  I  have 
said,  you  can  always  find  in  any  place  a  few  of  our 
people  whose  hearts  are  in  the  right  place;  it  was  so 
in  this  instance ;  a  few  of  the  old  men  were  very  stanch 
friends, — they  stood  by  me  in  this  fight  and  we  won. 
Such  was  the  condition  of  the  people  here  twenty-five 
years  ago. 

Now  how  changed  are  these  conditions?  From  the 
rented  log  cabin  the  school  has  grown  until  we  have 
at  present,  to  be  exact,  1940  acres  of  land  and  twenty- 
four  buildings,  counting  large  and  small.  It  enrolls 
each  year  between  three  and  four  hundred  students, 
teaches  fourteen  trades,  putting  most  stress  on  agri- 
culture. The  entire  property  is  valued  upwards  of 
$125,000  and  is  deeded  to  a  Board  of  Trustees. 

But  the  worth  of  an  institution  is  not  judged  by 
houses  and  land,  but  by  its  ability  to  serve  the  people 
among  whom  it  is  located.  It  has  never  been  our  end 
to  acquire  houses,  land  and  industries,  these  we  have 
used  as  means  of  enabling  us  to  accomplish  our  end, 


IN  THE  BLACK  BELT  51 

which  was  and  still  is  to  seek  and  to  save  that  which 
was  lost.  For  twenty-five  years  then  we  have  been 
here,  seeking  lost  boys,  lost  girls,  lost  men  and  lost 
women.  We  have  tolled  our  bells  that  they  might 
hear,  and  preached  the  gospel  of  work  in  order  that 
they  might  understand;  we  have  used  the  church,  the 
Sunday-School,  Bible  classes  and  other  religious  so- 
cieties that  they  might  feel ;  the  class-rooms  that  they 
might  know;  the  shops  and  farms  that  they  might 
handle  and  do.  And  so  all  of  our  material  acquisi- 
tions have  been  used  to  drive  home  one  great  end; 
social  service,  better  men  and  better  women. 

Now  how  well  we  have  accomplished  this  end  may 
be  seen  from  the  following:  Counting  those  who  have 
finished  the  course  of  study  and  others  who  have  re- 
mained at  the  school  long  enough  to  catch  its  spirit 
and  be  influenced  by  its  teaching,  we  have  sent  out 
into  various  parts  of  the  South  more  than  a  thousand 
young  men  and  women  who  are  today  leading  useful 
and  helpful  lives.  They  are  farmers,  blacksmiths, 
wheelwrights,  carpenters,  housekeepers,  dressmakers, 
printers,  railway  postal  clerks,  letter  carriers,  teach- 
ers, preachers,  domestic  servants,  insurance  agents, 
doctors,  expressmen,  contractors,  timber-inspectors, 
college  students.  In  fact,  they  are  to  be  found  in 
every  vocation  known  to  the  South.  Many  of  these 
young  people  have  bought  farms  and  homes  of  their 
own,  have  erected  neat  and  comfortable  cottages ;  have 
influenced  their  neighbors  to  buy  land,  to  build  better 
homes,  better  churches  and  better  school-houses. 
They  have  also  been  instrumental  in  securing  a  higher 
type  of  teachers  and  preachers.    They  make  a  special 


52  TWENTY-FIVE  YEARS 

effort  always  to  cultivate  a  friendly  relation  between 
the  two  races.  In  this  particular  they  have  been  re- 
markably successful.  I  shall  speak  more  directly 
about  their  work  under  the  chapter  on  Graduates. 

Perhaps  I  can  in  no  way  better  show  the  effects  of 
the  school  upon  the  immediate  community  than  by 
referring  to  an  address  given  by  me  and  quoted  in 
the  appendix  of  this  book. 

It  is  the  custom  at  Tuskegee  to  have  each  class  re- 
assemble at  the  school  twenty  years  after  graduation. 
Some  one  of  the  class  is  chosen  by  the  school,  to 
represent  the  class  and  is  placed  on  the  Commence- 
ment program.  It  fell  my  lot  to  represent  my  class  On 
this  occasion. 

Of  course  at  the  anniversary  of  each  class,  that 
class  is  expected  to  make  a  donation  to  the  school. 
Although  this  had  been  the  custom  for  several  years, 
the  class  donations  very  seldom  amounted  to  more 
than  $100.  Sometimes  they  were  as  small  as  $25.00 
or  less.  Somehow  I  have  always  felt  that  the  gradu- 
ates of  Tuskegee  owed  that  institution  a  debt  of  grati- 
tude which  they  can  never  pay,  and  thought  that  they 
should  make  the  class  anniversaries  mean  something 
more  substantial  to  the  school  than  they  had  meant. 
So  long  before  our  time  came,  I  wrote  the  members  of 
my  class  telling  them  that  it  should  be  our  aim  to  give 
Tuskegee  $1000  at  our  Anniversary.  They  readily 
agreed  with  me  and  the  class  set  itself  to  the  task 
of  raising  the  $1000.  This  was  done  because  we  felt 
that  the  time  had  come  for  the  graduates  to  give  more 
substantial  aid  to  their  Alma-Mater,  and  as  a  stimu- 
lus to  those  who  are  to  follow.    I  think  in  a  small  wav 


IN  THE  BLACK  BELT  53 

it  has  served  that  purpose,  because  these  class  anni- 
versary donations  have  never  been  less  than  $500 
since  that  date. 

I  think  of  all  the  talks  I  have  ever  made,  none  have 
given  me  the  real  joy  that  this  one  gave.  I  feel  that 
this  was  true  for  the  reason  that  this  was  a  giving 
talk  rather  than  a  receiving  one.  The  address  is  also 
given  in  the  appendix. 


54  TWENTY-FIVE  YEARS 


CHAPTER  10. 
Origin  of  the  Jeanes  Fund. 

In  the  fall  of  1902  I  received  a  letter  from  Dr. 
Washington  requesting  me  to  speak  at  a  meeting  in 
Philadelphia  in  the  interest  of  Tuskegee.  Miss  Cor- 
nelia Bowen,  also  a  graduate  of  Tuskegee,  was  asked 
to  speak  at  the  same  meeting.  We  both  accepted. 
During  my  stay  in  the  city  Mr.  Henry  C.  Davis,  a 
trustee  of  Tuskegee  at  the  time,  gave  me  a  letter  of 
introduction  to  Miss  Anna  T.  Jeanes,  a  wealthy 
woman  who  seldom  gave  to  schools  as  large  as  Tus- 
kegee and  Hampton,  but  who  would,  in  all  probability, 
be  interested  in  my  school. 

In  going  to  Miss  Jeanes  *s  home  on  Arch  Street  I  had 
many  apprehensions  but  I  found  her  very  cordial  and 
deeply  interested  in  the  welfare  of  my  people.  I  told 
her  of  my  struggle  to  get  an  education  and  how,  after 
finishing  at  Tuskegee  I  had  returned  to  my  home  in 
Alabama.  I  described  the  condition  of  the  public 
schools  in  the  rural  districts.  She  gave  keen  interest 
to  this  part  of  my  story.  Finally,  she  asked  me  if  I 
was  aiming  to  build  a  large  school  such  as  Tuskegee 
or  Hampton.  I  told  her  that  I  had  no  such  idea;  that 
I  only  wanted  to  build  a  school  that  could  properly 
care  for  three  or  four  hundred  students,  and  try  as 
best  I  could  to  help  the  little  schools  throughout  that 


IN  THE  BLACK  BELT  55 

section.  When  I  returned  to  Snow  Hill  I  found  a 
check  from  her  for  five  thousand  dollars  for  the  work 
at  Snow.  Hill. 

Each  year  after  this  Miss  Jeanes  gave  me  from 
$300  to  $2000  for  the  work  at  Snow  Hill.  Finally,  in 
the  fall  of  1906  when  she  had  moved  to  the  home  in 
Germantown  which  she  had  established  for  the  aged, 
I  called  to  see  her.  She  was  then  ill  and  although  the 
nurse  said  that  I  could  not  see  her,  after  my  card  had 
been  taken  to  her,  she  sent  for  me.  She  was  quite 
feeble,  but  said  to  me:  "I  have  been  deeply  interested 
in  what  thee  has  been  telling  me  all  these  years  about 
the  little  schools.  I  would  give  largely  to  them  if  thee 
thinks  that  thee  could  get  Dr.  Washington  or  Dr.  Fris- 
sell  to  come  to  see  me."  I  am  sure  she  was  thinking 
of  the  large  experience  of  those  men.  She  said  also 
that  she  thought  if  she  would  make  such  a  gift  as  she 
contemplated,  it  might  induce  other  great  philanthro- 
pists to  do  as  much. 

At  my  suggestion  Dr.  Washington  visited  Miss 
Jeanes  who  gave  $11,000  each  to  Dr.  Washington  and 
Dr.  Frissell  to  be  used  as  they  thought  best  for  the 
small  schools. 

I  am  positive  that  the  Jeanes  Fund  originated  in 
this  way,  and  I  am  proud  of  the  part  that  I  had  in  this 
affair  and  that  so  many  Negro  children  can  be  helped 
by  the  fund  that  is  destined  to  do  so  much  for  the  ele- 
vation of  our  people  in  this  country. 


56  TWENTY-FIVE  YEARS 


CHAPTER  11. 
Appeeciation. 

In  building  up  an  institution  such  as  we  have  done 
at  Snow  Hill,  no  one  man  is  entitled  to  all  the  credit. 
On  the  contrary,  it  is  impossible  to  name  all  to  whom 
credit  is  due.  We  can  only  speak  of  those  who  have 
been  closely  allied  with  us  and  whose  work  has  been 
prominent  in  the  building  of  the  institution.  Perhaps 
of  these,  the  Trustees  come  first.  We  could  never 
have  gone  on  with  the  work  from  year  to  year  without 
their  aid  and  assistance. 

Without  Mr.  R.  0.  Simpson  there  could  not  have 
been  any  Snow  Hill  Institute.  We  might  have  built 
a  similar  school  elsewhere,  but  we  could  not  have  built 
it  at  Snow  Hill.  Mr.  Simpson  gave  the  first  site  for 
the  school  and  from  the  start  has  been  one  of  our  best 
friends.  He  stood  for  Negro  Education  when  it  was 
unpopular  for  him  to  do  so.  He  allied  himself  with 
this  cause,  at  the  risk  of  being  ostracised  by  other 
white  people.  Because  of  his  firm  stand,  most  of  the 
white  people  in  this  section  have  been  won  over  to 
his  way  of  thinking,  and  now  there  is  scarcely  if  any 
opposition  hereabouts  to  the  Snow  Hill  Institute. 

Mr.  R.  0.  Simpson  is  one  of  the  noblest  men  that  I 
have  ever  met,  North  or  South.  He  is  absolutely  free 
from  all  racial  and  petty  prejudice  that  we  so  often 


IN  THE  BLACK  BELT  57 

find  in  the  average  man  of  today.  I  feel  safe  in  say- 
ing that  he  is  living  at  least  fifty  years  ahead  of  his 
time.  The  things  that  he  stands  for  and  have  been 
fighting  for,  for  thirty  years,  are  coming  more  and 
more  to  pass,  and  although  it  seems  hard  for  the  pres- 
ent generation  to  accept  them,  they  must  be  accepted 
if  we  would  make  the  world  safe  for  Democracy.  He 
is  a  true  patriot,  a  true  democrat,  and  a  zealous  Chris- 
tian gentleman.  Mr.  Simpson  has  a  family  of  five 
children,  three  sons  and  two  daughters,  all  of  whom 
possess  his  spirit  to  a  large  degree. 

I  first  met  Rev.  R.  C.  Bedford  at  Tuskegee  while  I 
was  there  in  school.  I  loved  him  from  the  first  time 
I  saw  him  and  I  feel  that  this  was  because  of  his  deep 
and  sincere  interest  in  our  people.  Until  I  met  Mr. 
Bedford,  I  had  always  distrusted  the  white  man  and 
thought  it  was  impossible  for  any  white  man  to  be 
free  from  race  prejudice.  After  my  graduation  at 
Tuskegee,  as  I  said  before,  I  returned  to  Snow  Hill 
and  seeing  that  Mr.  Bedford  and  Mr.  Simpson  had 
something  in  common,  arranged  to  have  Mr.  Bedford 
come  to  Snow  Hill  and  meet  Mr.  Simpson.  Their 
meeting  resembled  that  of  Jonathan  and  David,  and  I 
believe  their  friendship  was  equally  great.  It  contin- 
ued until  Mr.  Bedford's  death.  Mr.  Bedford  was  one 
man  who  understood  what  it  was  to  build  up  an  in- 
stitution from  nothing.  He  knew  the  hardships  one 
had  to  undergo  to  meet  bills  when  there  was  no  money 
appropriated  for  these  bills.  He  knew  what  it  was 
to  make  brick  without  straw.  Ofttimes  when  the  bur- 
den was  heavy  and  the  yoke  rough,  it  was  the  encour- 
aging words  from  Mr.  Bedford  that  gave  me  strength 


58  TWENTY-FIVE  YEAKS 

and  courage  to  continue.  While  his  particular  mis- 
sion was  to  look  after  the  Tuskegee  schools,  he  loved 
every  good  work  and  would  always  lend  a  hand  to  a 
good  cause.  He  was  thoroughly  imbued  with  the 
Christ-spirit. 

I  cannot  express  in  words  the  great  debt  of  grati- 
tude that  I  owe  the  immortal  Booker  T.  Washington, 
for  I  owe  all  to  him.  It  was  he  who  changed  my  view 
of  life.  He  changed  me  from  the  visionary  to  the  sub- 
stantial, from  the  shadow  to  the  substance,  from  the 
artificial  to  the  real,  and  from  words  to  deeds.  Dr. 
Washington  became  a  trustee  of  Snow  Hill  Institute 
from  its  beginning  and  remained  as  such  until  his 
death.  He  made  three  visits  to  Snow  Hill,  the  last 
being  November  18th,  1914.  Dr.  Washington  always 
did  what  he  could  to  help  us  in  our  work.  He  seemed 
to  appreciate  the  efforts  that  we  were  putting  forth  to 
uplift  our  people.  He  could  sympathize  with  us;  he 
could  understand  that  an  institution  that  had  no  per- 
manent support,  but  had  to  depend  upon  the  efforts  of 
one  man  to  raise  money,  could  not  be  perfect,  and 
many  things  were  not  as  well  as  they  should  be.  Dr. 
Washington  could  sympathize  with  us  because  he 
knew  what  it  was.  He  had  borne  the  burden  in  the 
heat  of  the  day.  But  I  find  that  persons  who  have 
done  nothing  themselves,  but  have  lived  as  parasites 
most  of  their  days,  are  much  more  critical  than  Dr. 
Washington  ever  could  be.  Sometimes  I  am  asked  to 
what  I  attribute  Dr.  Washington's  success  in  life.  My 
answer  to  this  question  has  always  been  the  same:  to 
his  spirit  and  simplicity.  He  possessed  in  a  very  large 
degree,  the  spirit  and  simplicity  of  the  Master.    He 


IN  THE  BLACK  BELT  59 

never  struck  back.  He  always  sought  to  do  good  to 
those  who  would  do  evil  to  him.  He  was  meek  and 
lowly  of  heart,  and  I  know  that  he  has  found  rest  for 
his  soul. 

There  are  other  trustees  who  have  played  a  promi- 
nent part  in  the  development  of  the  work  here,  among 
whom  may  be  mentioned  Mr.  James  H.  Post,  Rev. 
Henry  Wilder  Foote,  Prof.  William  Howell  Reed  and 
Mr.  William  H.  Baldwin,  3rd.  The  trustees  are  now 
taking  a  more  active  part  in  the  work  than  ever  be- 
fore. This  is  their  bounden  duty,  because  the  school 
is  theirs,  not  mine. 

Next  to  the  Trustees,  the  officers  and  teachers  have 
played  a  prominent  part  in  the  work  here.  My  class- 
mate, Henry  A.  Barnes,  has  been  treasurer  of  the 
school  for  twenty-three  years,  which  period  of  ser- 
vice is,  in  itself,  a  tribute  to  his  faithfulness.  Mr. 
Barnes  not  only  does  the  work  of  treasurer,  but  is  also 
Acting  Principal  during  my  absence  from  the  school, 
and  under  him  the  work  of  the  school  continues  with 
little  or  no  interruption  while  I  am  away.  What  Mr. 
Barnes  has  been  to  the  Financial  Department,  Mr. 
R.  A.  Daly  has  been  to  our  Industries.  I  consider  Mr. 
Daly  the  best  Industrial  man  that  we  can  have. 

The  Academic  Department  has  been  developed  un- 
der the  management  of  Messrs.  Whitehead  and  Handy, 
and  it  stands  well  in  comparison  with  that  of  other 
similar  schools  in  the  State. 

I  cannot  overestimate  the  value  of  the  conscientious 
work  done  by  my  secretaries  during  all  these  years. 
Miss  Rebecca  Savage  (now  Mrs.  R.  V.  Cooke)  served 
in  this  capacity  for  fourteen  years  and  Miss  0.  H. 


60  TWENTY-FIVE  YEARS 

Williamson  has  served  one  way  or  another  for  five 
years.  Much  of  the  office  work  and  responsibility 
fall  upon  the  secretaries  and  this  responsibility  they 
have  borne  without  complaint.  Sometimes  we  have 
been  compelled  to  work  night  and  day,  but  they  have 
always  been  willing  to  serve.  Not  only  have  the  offi- 
cers been  willing  to  serve,  but  the  rank  and  file  of  our 
teachers  have  shown  the  same  spirit  of  willingness 
from  year  to  year.  Sometimes  they  would  get  their 
pay  promptly  and  at  other  times  they  would  have  to 
wait  for  months,  but  always  they  have  been  willing  to 
do  what  they  could  to  cheer  and  help  me  in  the  dark- 
est hour  of  the  struggle.  I  believe  that  the  spirit  of 
the  officers  and  teachers  of  Snow  Hill  Institute  is: 
"Not  to  be  ministered  unto,  but  to  minister." 

Aside  from  Trustees,  officers  and  teachers,  there  is 
that  great  cloud  of  witnesses  which  no  man  can  num- 
ber, who  have  helped  by  their  aid,  their  words  of 
cheer  and  their  presence  from  time  to  time.  These 
are  in  all  parts  of  the  country,  but  principally  in  the 
North  and  East.  How  shall  we  thank  them  for  what 
they  have  been  to  us?  "We  cannot  do  it  by  words,  be- 
cause there  are  no  words  that  could  adequately  ex- 
press our  deep  sense  of  gratitude  to  this  host  of 
friends.  We  must,  therefore,  be  contented  to  show 
them  by  our  acts  and  deeds  that  we  are  ever  mindful 
of  their  help  and  that  each  day  we  are  striving  more 
and  more  to  make  ourselves  and  our  work  worthy  of 
their  aid  and  encouragement.  Among  this  cloud  of 
witnesses  are  some  of  the  best  people  that  God  has 
ever  made.  They  deem  it  a  privilege  to  give  and  to 
help  the  lowly. 


TYPICAL   LOG   CABIN   IN   THE    BLACK   BELT 


HOME   OF   A   SNOW  HILL   GRADUATE 


IN  THE  BLACK  BELT  61 

In  speaking  of  our  debt  of  gratitude  to  the  forces 
that  have  helped  in  building  up  our  work  here,  we 
must  not  overlook  the  press.  There  are  certain  great 
papers  in  this  country  that  have  been  fearless  in  their 
advocacy  of  right  and  justice  to  the  Negro,  and  have 
always  opened  their  columns  to  any  cause  that  has  for 
its  end  the  uplift  of  the  lowly.  Among  these  may  be 
mentioned  especially  The  New  York  Evening  Post, 
The  Boston  Transcript,  The  Springfield  Republican, 
The  Hartford  Courant,  and  in  the  South  The  Mont- 
gomery Advertiser. 

One  also  receives  much  aid  and  encouragement  from 
those  who  are  in  similar  work.  It  has  been  my  good 
fortune  to  meet  in  the  North  from  time  to  time  with 
those  who  have  similar  work  as  mine.  In  this  way  I 
have  met  most  of  the  Principals  of  Southern  Schools. 
Perhaps  Mr.  W.  H.  Holtzclaw  of  Utica,  Mississippi, 
comes  first  in  this  class.  This  is  true,  because  I  have 
known  him  the  longest.  I  first  met  him  in  Tuskegee 
in  the  early  nineties,  when  we  both  were  in  school 
there.  His  life  was  similar  to  mine,  as  we  both  had 
a  very  hard  time  in  trying  to  get  an  education.  I  be- 
came interested  in  him  there  and  when  he  finished  I 
took  him  to  work  with  me  at  Snow  Hill.  It  was  at 
Snow  Hill  that  he  met  and  married  Miss  Mary  Ella 
Patterson,  one  of  our  teachers.  They  remained  with 
us  at  Snow  Hill  four  years.  Both  Mr  and  Mrs.  Holtz- 
claw have  always  seemed  more  like  my  relatives 
than  like  friends.  Some  of  Mr.  Holtzclaw 's  best  teach- 
ers today  are  graduates  of  Snow  Hill  Institute.  I 
have  always  been  deeply  interested  in  the  welfare  of 
Utica  for  it  is  in  reality  an  outgrowth  of  Snow  Hill. 


62  TWENTY-FIVE  YEARS 

Other  Principals  whom  I  meet  occasionally,  are 
President  Battle  of  Okolona,  Mississippi,  where  a 
number  of  our  graduates  have  worked.  I  have  found 
Mr.  Battle  interested  in  the  general  cause  of  Negro 
Education,  and  too,  we  found  in  our  case  that  the 
cause  is  the  same.  I  have  had  occasion  to  ask  Mr. 
Battle  just  how  our  graduates  measure  up  with  his 
other  teachers,  and  he  tells  me  that  Snow  Hill  gradu- 
ates are  among  his  best  helpers.  By  this  I  know 
that  in  deeds,  not  words,  we  are  making  good. 

Another  most  interesting  character  whom  I  always 
meet  on  my  tours  North  is  Mr.  Frank  P.  Chisholm, 
Financial  Secretary  of  Tuskegee  Institute.  I  have  been 
knowing  Mr.  Chisholm  for  a  great  many  years.  We 
have  attended  the  Summer  School  at  Harvard  several 
summers  together  and  it  has  been  both  a  pleasure  and 
benefit  to  me  to  be  associated  with  him  in  this  way.  Al- 
though working  directly  for  Tuskegee,  he  has  always 
been  willing  to  speak  a  word  for  Snow  Hill  wherever 
the  opportunity  presented  itself.  I  have  obtained 
many  suggestions  from  Mr.  Chisholm  which  have  been 
very  beneficial  to  me  in  my  work  here.  I  consider  Mr. 
Chisholm  a  representative  type  of  the  new  Negro  of 
to-day.  He  is  a  brilliant  scholar,  a  clear  thinker,  and  is 
doing  a  very  effective  work  for  Tuskegee. 

Others  with  whom  I  come  in  contact  on  such  trips 
are  Principal  Hunt  of  Fort  Valley,  Ga. ;  Principal  Min- 
afee  of  Denmark,  S.  C. ;  Principal  Long  of  Christian- 
burg,  Va.  These  young  men  and  many  others  are  do- 
ing a  greater  work  than  they  know,  and  all  possess  in 
a  smaller  or  larger  degree  the  spirit  of  dear  old  Tus- 
kegee.   They  are  all  preaching  the  gospel  of  Service. 


IN  THE  BLACK  BELT  63 


CHAPTER  12. 
Graduates  and  Ex-students. 

Prof.  Bagley  in  his  "Classroom  Management/' 
page  225,  has  the  following  to  say  in  "Testing  Re- 
sults": 

"The  ultimate  test  of  efficiency  of  efforts  is  the  re- 
sult of  effort.  Unhappily  this  test  is  seldom  applied 
to  the  work  of  teaching.  We  judge  the  teacher  by  the 
process  rather  than  by  the  product,  and  we  introduce 
a  number  of  extraneous  criteria  to  hide  the  absence 
of  a  real  criterion.  We  watch  the  way  in  which  he 
conducts  a  recitation,  how  many  slips  he  makes 
in  his  diction  and  syntax,  inspect  his  personal  appear- 
ance, ask  of  what  school  he  is  a  graduate  and  how 
many  degrees  he  possesses,  inquire  into  his  moral 
character,  -  determine  his  church  membership,  and 
judge  him  to  be  a  good  or  a  poor  teacher  according 
to  our  findings.  All  of  these  queries  may  have  their 
place  in  the  estimation  of  any  teacher's  worth,  but 
they  do  not  strike  the  most  salient,  the  most  vital, 
point  at  issue.  That  point  is  simply  this:  Does  he 
'make  good'  in  results?  Does  he  do  the  thing  that  he 
sets  out  to  do,  and  does  he  do  it  well?" 

I  agree  wholly  with  Prof.  Bagley  in  this  particular 
and  on  these  grounds  we  are  willing  to  stand  or  fall 
by  the  results  of  our  graduates. 

Speaking  of  our  graduates  and  ex-students,  I  wish 


64  TWENTY-FIVE  YEARS 

to  point  to  the  life  and  work  of  a  few  written  by  their 
own  hands  because  in  these  particular  cases  I  can 
testify  to  the  truth  of  every  word  they  say,  having 
known  them  from  early  childhood.  Their  record  fol- 
lows and  they  speak  for  themselves : 

"I  was  born  in  Snow  Hill,  Wilcox  County,  Alabama, 
about  30  years  ago.  I  was  the  14th  child  of  a  family 
of  17.  My  father  was  a  very  prosperous  farmer  and 
believed  in  educating  his  children.  Each  year  he 
would  send  them  by  twos  off  to  schools,  such  as  Talla- 
dega, Tuskegee  and  Normal,  Alabama.  Some  of  the 
older  children,  however,  did  not  take  advantage  of 
the  great  opportunity  they  had.  He  spent  his  money 
lavishly  on  them  and  about  the  time  I  was  large 
enough  to  go  off  to  school,  he  was  not  as  prosperous. 
As  soon  as  I  was  old  enough  he  kept  me  in  the  public 
and  sometimes  private  schools,  both  summer  and  win- 
ter. Yet,  he  had  promised  to  send  the  remainder  of 
us  off  to  school.  Fortunately  for  us,  however,  Snow 
Hill  Institute  had  been  established  by  Mr.  W.  J.  Ed- 
wards, and  my  father  being  very  much  impressed  with 
Mr.  Edwards  and  his  teachers,  consulted  him  about 
entering  three  children,  I  being  the  youngest.  Mr. 
Edwards  kindly  consented  and  we  were  at  once  put  in 
school  there.  I  was  also  fond  of  music  and  after 
learning  that  Snow  Hill  Institute  had  such  an  efficient 
music  teacher,  I  was  very  much  pleased  to  attend 
school  there.  So  in  the  year  of  1900  I  entered.  I  was 
enabled  to  develop  my  musical  talent  to  the  extent 
that  I  was  selected  to  play  for  my  home  church,  and 
that  inspired  other  students  to  attend  Snow  Hill  In- 
stitute. 


IN  THE  BLACK  BELT  65 

"  During  my  first  year  in  school  there  I  was  unde- 
cided as  to  just  what  I  was  going  to  follow  as  a  trade. 
I  worked  awhile  in  the  sewing  room  then  in  the  laun- 
dry— was  also  interested  in  cooking  and  took  special 
lessons  in  cooking  under  Miss  Mabry.  In  fact,  I 
studied  cooking  the  first  two  years.  Finally,  in  my 
senior  year,  Miss  C.  V.  Johnson,  then  Secretary  to 
Mr.  Edwards,  asked  me  to  clean  the  offices  of  morn- 
ings for  her  and  work  with  her  on  my  work  days.  I 
began  this  work  and  would  watch  her  using  the  type- 
writer so  much  until  I  fully  decided  that  I  wanted  to 
make  an  efficient  secretary  for  someone,  and  began 
working  to  that  end.  On  my  work  days  she  would 
have  me  copying  letters  with  ink.  I  would  be  careful 
not  to  make  a  mistake.  During  the  time  I  was  work- 
ing in  the  office,  Mr.  Edwards  would  often  send  me  on 
errands  and  tell  me  to  see  how  quickly  I  could  go  and 
come.  He  seemed  to  have  been  very  much  impressed 
with  my  work  as  a  student  in  both  the  Academic  and 
Industrial  departments.  There  were  several  prize 
contests  given  my  class  by  different  teachers,  and  I 
won  each  prize.  This  was  in  the  Academic  depart- 
ment. There  were  twelve  members  in  the  class.  Mr. 
Edwards  had  the  members  of  my  class  to  write  some 
friends  of  the  school  for  scholarships  (this  being  the 
request  of  the  friends)  and  of  the  two  persons  that 
received  favorable  answers,  I  was  one.  During  the 
whole  time  I  was  in  school  I  did  not  receive  one  de- 
merit, or  a  black  mark.  Our  teachers  seemed  perfect, 
and  it  was  a  pleasure  for  me  to  try  to  please  them. 

"In  the  year  1903  I  graduated  from  the  institution 
with  a  splendid  grasp  of  all  that  the  school  stood  for 


66  TWENTY-FIVE  YEARS 

and  in  favor  with  all  of  my  teachers  and  friends.  Mr. 
Edwards,  knowing  my  ability  to  do  things  as  I  was 
instructed,  employed  me  to  work  in  his  office  as  clerk. 
I  then  put  forth  more  strenuous  efforts  to  do  efficient 
work  and  would  try  to  improve  myself  along  that  par- 
ticular line  of  work.  So  in  the  summer  of  1905  I  at- 
tended school  at  Cheyney,  Pa.,  taking  a  special  course 
in  English,  typewriting  and  shorthand.  I  did  my  best 
to  give  satisfaction  in  my  work. 

"In  the  year  1909  I  was  made  Private  Secretary  to 
Mr.  Edwards  and  a  member  of  the  Executive  Council. 
I  still  had  a  desire  to  make  further  improvement,  and 
in  the  summer  of  1911,  I  attended  Comer's  Commer- 
cial College  in  Boston,  Mass.,  trying  to  become  more 
efficient  in  the  work  that  was  assigned  to  my  hands. 
Principal  Edwards  would  have  to  be  away  from  the 
school  most  of  the  time  soliciting  means  to  carry  on 
the  work,  but  I  tried  to  not  leave  a  stone  unturned  in 
accomplishing  the  work  he  left  behind.  Snow  Hill  In- 
stitute succeeded  in  inculcating  into  my  life  a  love  for 
work,  and  I  am  not  satisfied  unless  I  have  some  work 
to  do. 

"I  worked  for  Mr.  Edwards  untiringly  until  Octo- 
ber, 1917.  I  was  married,  however,  in  July,  1917.  I 
have  often  wondered  where  my  lot  would  have  been 
cast  had  there  been  no  Snow  Hill  Institute." 

"I  was  born  of  ex-slave  parents  on  the  Calhoun 
plantation  in  Dallas  County,  Alabama.  I  am  not 
quite  sure  of  the  exact  date  of  my  birth,  but  at  any 
rate,  as  nearly  as  I  have  been  able  to  learn,  I  was  born 
near  the  village  called  Richmond,  in  the  month  of 
May,  1883.    My  life  had  its  beginning  under  the  most 


IN  THE  BLACK  BELT  67 

difficult  circumstances.  This  was  so,  however,  not  be- 
cause of  any  wilful  neglect  on  the  part  of  my  parents, 
but  as  ex-slaves  they  naturally  knew  but  little  as  to 
the  providing  for  the  maintenance  of  their  family  and 
home.  I  was  born  in  a  one-room  log  cabin  about 
14  x  15  feet  square.  In  this  cabin  I  lived  with  my 
mother,  father  and  the  other  eight  sisters  and  broth- 
ers until  providentially  I  found  an  opportunity  to 
enter  school  at  Snow  Hill  Institute,  Snow  Hill,  Ala- 
bama. 

"I  went  to  Snow  Hill  in  the  year  of  1896,  and  there 
remained  for  eight  years  receiving  instruction  at  the 
hand  of  a  loyal  band  of  self-sacrificing  teachers,  who 
not  only  taught  me  how  to  read,  write  and  to  cipher, 
but  in  addition  they  taught  me  lessons  of  thrift  and  in- 
dustry which  have  proven  to  be  the  main  saving  point 
in  my  life. 

"I  completed  the  prescribed  course  of  study  at  the 
Snow  Hill  Institute  in  1904  and  returned  home  as  I 
had  resolved  to  do,  before  entering  school  there,  for 
the  purpose  of  helping  the  people  of  my  home  com- 
munity. 

"The  Street  Manual  Training  School  (Incorpo- 
rated) at  Richmond,  Dallas  County,  Alabama,  was 
started  in  1904  with  one  teacher,  fifteen  pupils  and  no 
money.  Since  that  time  it  has  grown  to  the  point 
where  it  now  has  thirty  acres  of  land,  four  buildings, 
and  an  enrollment  of  three  hundred  pupils.  The  en- 
tire property  is  valued  at  fifteen  thousand  dollars 
($15,000)  and  deeded  to  a  board  of  Trustees.  Among 
the  members  of  this  board  are:  Mr.  J.  D.  Alison,  Pres- 
ident, Mrs.  Edwin  D.  Mead,  the  Rev,  Mr.  Emmanuel  M. 


68  TWENTY-FIVE  YEARS 

Brown,  Mr.  Wm.  D.  Brigham,  Mr.  Walter  Powers, 
Mr.  Edwin  W.  Lambert,  Mr.  W.  J.  Edwards,  Mrs. 
Francis  Carr  and  Mr.  Henry  A.  Barnes. 

"This  school  is  training  some  three  hundred  Negro 
children  between  the  ages  of  six  and  eighteen  years 
in  the  practical  arts  necessary  to  enable  them  to  make 
an  earnest,  comfortable  living.  There  is  no  attempt 
made  to  teach  them  foreign  languages,  either  dead  or 
living;  but  they  are  well  grounded  in  the  English  lan- 
guage. They  do  not  study  higher  mathematics,  but 
they  learn  simple  arithmetic.  They  spend  no  time  on 
psychology,  economics,  sociology,  or  logic;  their  time 
is  taken  up  trying  to  raise  crops,  to  manage  a  small 
farm,  to  cook  and  to  sew.'* 

Sketch  of  My  Life. 

"I  was  born  in  Snow  Hill,  Wilcox  County,  Alabama, 
December  24th,  1883.  My  parents  were  Emanuel  and 
Emma  McDuffie.  I  was  brought  up  under  the  most 
adverse  conditions.  My  father  died  about  six  months 
before  my  birth,  thus  leaving  my  mother  with  the  care 
of  seven  children.  As  I  had  never  seen  my  father,  I 
was  often  referred  to  by  the  other  children  of  the 
community,  as  the  son  of  "none."  In  July,  1893,  my 
mother  died  and  the  burden  of  caring  for  the  children 
then  fell  upon  my  old  grandmother,  who  was  known 
throughout  the  community  as  "Aunt"  Polly.  In  order 
to  help  secure  food  and  clothing  for  myself  and  the 
rest  of  the  family,  I  was  compelled  to  plow  an  ox  on 
a  farm  and  as  we  usually  made  from  four  to  five  bales 
of  cotton  and  40  and  50  bushels  of  corn  each  year,  she 


IN  THE  BLACK  BELT  69 

was  looked  upon  as  a  great  farmer.  When  I  was 
fifteen  years  of  age,  my  grandmother  was  called  to 
her  heavenly  rest,  thus  leaving  a  house  full  of  chil- 
dren to  shift  for  themselves.  After  her  death  I  be- 
came interested  in  education  and  immediately  applied 
for  admittance  to  Snow  Hill  Normal  and  Industrial 
Institute,  which  had  recently  been  established.  I  was 
admitted  as  a  work  student,  working  all  day  and  at- 
tending school  about  two  hours  and  a  half  at  night. 
Until  I  entered  Snow  Hill  Institute,  I  had  a  very- 
vague  idea  about  life  as  it  pertained  to  the  Negro. 
In  fact,  up  until  that  time,  I  was  of  the  opinion  that 
the  Negro  had  no  business  being  anything;  but  after 
entering  the  school  and  being  surrounded  by  a  differ- 
ent atmosphere  and  seeing  what  had  already  been  ac- 
complished by  Mr.  Edwards,  I  soon  realized  that  the 
Negro  had  as  much  right  to  life  and  liberty  as  any 
other  man. 

"While  it  was  great  joy  for  me  to  be  in  school,  I 
was  woefully  unprepared  to  remain  there.  Really,  I 
am  unable  to  tell  the  many  obstacles  that  confronted 
me  while  in  school.  But  one  of  my  many  difficulties 
was  to  get  sufficient  clothing,  for  when  I  entered,  I 
had  on  all  that  I  possessed  and  day  after  day  I  wore 
what  I  had  until  finally  they  got  beyond  mending. 
The  teachers  at  Snow  Hill  were  just  as  they  are  now, 
extremely  hard  against  dirt  and  filth.  As  I  only  had 
one  suit  of  underwear  and  as  we  were  compelled  to 
change  at  least  once  a  week,  I  could  plainly  see  that 
my  condition  was  becoming  more  alarming  each  day. 
So  I  would  go  down  to  the  spring  at  night,  wash  that 
suit  and  dry  it  the  best  I  could  by  the  heater  that  was 


70  TWENTY-FIVE  YEARS 

in  my  room.  Quite  often  I  would  go  for  days  wearing 
damp  or  wet  underwear,  which  has  caused  both 
pain  and  doctor  bills  in  after  years.  Finally,  Mr. 
Edwards  relieved  me  of  this  situation  when  he  sent 
me  to  the  sales-room  to  get  a  pair  of  second-hand 
trousers  and  another  suit  of  underwear.  My  trousers 
didn't  begin  to  fit,  for  they  were  both  too  large  and 
too  long,  but  I  wore  them  with  pleasure  because  I 
went  to  Snow  Hill  in  search  of  an  education  and  I  wap 
willing  to  make  any  sacrifice  to  obtain  my  desire. 
Through  all  of  my  troubles  I  never  became  discour- 
aged, because  I  felt  that  some  day  I  would  be  pre- 
pared to  be  of  service  to  my  people. 

"Of  all  things  that  gave  me  inspiration  while  in 
school,  Mr.  Edwards's  own  Christian  life  which  he 
lived  before  us  day  after  day  had  more  to  do  with 
keeping  me  there  than  anything  else.  His  courage  and 
perseverance  under  difficulties,  which  we  all  could  see, 
were  noble  lessons  to  me.  In  his  Sunday  evening  talks 
in  the  chapel,  he  would  plead  with  us  to  shape  our 
lives  for  work  among  those  who  were  less  fortunate 
than  we.  One  Sunday  evening,  he  made  a  powerful 
and  vivid  appeal,  admonishing  the  students  to  go  out, 
when  they  had  finished  their  education,  and  start  their 
life 's  work  among  the  lowly  in  the  rural  districts.  He 
spoke  these  words  many  times  during  the  term.  In 
fact,  so  often  did  he  repeat  them  that  the  very 
thoughts  of  them  inspired  me  and  I  soon  learned  to 
love  the  cause  of  humanity  as  well  and  as  dearly  as 
did  Mr.  Edwards  himself.  Soon  after  completing  my 
course  in  May,  1904,  a  call  came  from  the  Black  Belt 
of  North  Carolina  for  a  man  to  go  to  Laurinburg  and 


IN  THE  BLACK  BELT  71 

build  up  an  Industrial  school  there.  After  talking 
the  matter  over  with  Mr.  Edwards,  I  decided  to  go. 

"I  reached  the  town  of  Laurinburg  September  15, 
1904.  When  I  got  there  I  found  that  the  people  had 
been  so  often  deceived  and  hoodwinked  by  political 
demagogues  and  supposed  race  leaders,  that  they  had 
no  confidence  in  any  one.  But  I  made  a  start  and 
opened  school  in  an  old  public  school  building  with 
seven  students  and  fifteen  cents  in  cash.  As  the  peo- 
ple had  no  confidence  in  me,  it  was  hard  for  me  to  in- 
crease my  enrollment,  but  I  continued  to  labor  with 
them  on  the  streets  and  in  the  churches  until  I  gradu- 
ally won  their  respect.  Then  we  started  the  erection 
of  a  new  school  building  and  from  that  day  until  now, 
both  white  and  black  have  taken  the  deepest  interest 
in  the  work  and  we  now  have  the  absolute  confidence 
of  all  the  people. 

"The  work  has  constantly  grown  from  year  to  year 
and  results  have  been  obtained.  From  one  teacher, 
seven  students  and  fifteen  cents  in  cash,  thirteen  years 
ago,  the  institution  now  has  fourteen  teachers,  up- 
wards of  four  hundred  students  from  all  over  North 
Carolina,  Virginia,  South  Carolina  and  Georgia,  and 
counting  land,  livestock,  five  large  and  three  small 
buildings,  it  has  a  property  valuation  of  $30,000  all 
free  of  debt.  Each  year  our  teachers  are  selected 
from  some  of  the  best  schools  of  the  South;  such  as 
Tuskegee  Institute,  Shaw  University,  Snow  Hill  In- 
stitute, Claflin  University,  Benedict  College,  etc. 
Eight  industries  are  taught,  consisting  of  farming, 
blacksmithing,  wheelwrighting,  sewing,  laundering, 
printing,  domestic  science  and  home  nursing. 


72  TWENTY-FIVE  YEARS 

"We  are  kept  in  immediate  need  of  money  for  cur- 
rent and  building  expenses,  but  we  are  going  on  ac- 
complishing results  with  what  we  have  at  hand.  Boys 
and  girls  are  being  sent  out  each  year  to  work  among 
their  fellows.  These  young  men  and  women  are  reach- 
ing the  masses  and  as  a  result,  the  moral  tone  of  the 
people  is  being  aroused  to  the  contemplation  of  higher 
ideals  and  they  are  at  last  becoming  serious  as  to  the 
sober  side  of  life.  Excursions,  parties  and  a  good  time 
generally  are  slowly  but  surely  being  relegated  to  the 
rear.  Our  farmers  are  studying  how  to  become  better 
farmers  and  in  all  walks  of  life,  we  are  improving  in 
workshop  and  the  various  industries. 

"Verily,  the  school  room  is  doing  much  in  awaken- 
ing the  dormant  energies  of  the  Negro  for  good.  In 
fact,  the  school's  influence  is  helping  the  people  gen- 
erally. Where  there  were  ignorance  and  indifference, 
now  we  have  a  fair  measure  of  intelligence  and  thrift. 
The  people  are  buying  homes  and  property,  and  in 
many  ways  showing  signs  of  aspiration. 

"We  have  also  organized  a  farmers'  conference  and 
it  is  gratifying  indeed  to  see  how  hundreds  of  farmers, 
with  their  wives  and  children,  turn  out  seeking  in- 
formation, demonstration  and  co-operation.  I  have 
been  thus  enabled  to  help  my  people  here  in  North 
Carolina  by  giving  them  the  new  truth  and  the  new 
light  and  pointing  them  on  to  a  better  way." 

Waverley  Turner  Carmichael  was  born  at  Snow 
Hill,  Ala.,  in  1888,  and  was  reared  on  the  farm  as  all 
country  negro  boys  are.  All  of  his  education  was  ob- 
tained at  the  Snow  Hill  Institute  except  for  six  weeks 
he  spent  in  the  Harvard  Summer  School  last  year. 


GRADUATES    OF    SNOW    HILL    INSTITUTE 


Emmanuel  McDuffie,  Principal  Laurin- 
burg  Normal  and  Industrial  Institute, 
Laurinburg,  N.  C. 

John  W.  Brister,  who  established  a  prize 
at  Snow  Hill  Institute. 


Rev.  Emmanuel  M.Brown  of  Street  Manual 
Training  School,  Richmond,  Alabama. 


Waver  ley  Turner   Carmichael,   Poet    of 
Snow  Hill. 


IN  THE  BLACK  BELT  73 

I  had  been  deeply  impressed  with  the  poems  which 
he  had  been  writing  for  several  years,  but  as  I  was  no 
judge  of  poems,  I  thought  I  would  give  him  a  chance 
to  bring  his  poems  before  those  who  could  judge,  so 
I  received  for  him  a  free  scholarship  at  the  Summer 
School  at  Harvard.  He  read  his  poems  to  the  class  on 
several  occasions  and  I  had  the  opportunity  of  hear- 
ing him  several  times.  They  had  a  deep  impression 
upon  the  class,  so  much  so  that  his  professor  wrote  the 
introduction  to  his  book  in  the  following  words : — 

"When  Waverley  Carmichael,  as  a  student  in  my 
summer  class  at  Harvard,  brought  me  one  day  a  mod- 
est sheaf  of  his  poems,  I  felt  that  in  him  a  race  had  be- 
come or  at  least  was  becoming  articulate.  We  have 
had,  it  is  true,  sympathetic  portrayals  of  Negro  life 
and  feeling  from  without ;  we  have  had  also  the  poems 
of  Dunbar,  significant  of  the  high  capabilities  of  the 
Negro  as  he  advances  far  along  the  way  of  civilization 
and  culture.  The  note  which  is  sounded  in  this  little 
volume  is  of  another  sort.  These  humble  and  often 
imperfect  utterances  have  sprung  up  spontaneously 
from  the  soul  of  a  primitive  and  untutored  folk.  The 
rich  emotion,  the  individual  humor,  the  simple  wis- 
dom, the  naive  faith  which  are  its  birthright,  have 
here  for  the  first  time  found  voice.  It  is  sufficient  to 
say  of  Waverley  Carmichael  that  he  is  a  full  blooded 
southern  Negro,  that  until  last  summer  he  has  never 
been  away  from  his  native  Alabama,  that  he  has  had 
but  the  most  limited  advantages  of  education,  and 
that  he  has  shared  the  portion  of  his  race  in  hardship, 
poverty  and  toil.  He  does  not  know  why  he  wrote 
these  poems.    It  is  an  amazing  thing  that  he  should 


74  TWENTY-FIVE  YEARS 

have  done  so — a  freak,  we  may  call  it,  of  the  wind  of 
genius,  which  bloweth  where  it  listeth  and  singles  out 
one  in  ten  thousand  to  find  a  fitting  speech  for  the 
dumb  thought  and  feeling  of  the  rest. 

But  we  need  not  base  the  claim  of  Carmichael  to 
the  attention  of  the  public  merely  on  considerations  of 
this  sort.  His  work  speaks  for  itself.  It  is  original 
and  sincere.  It  follows  no  traditions  and  suffers  no 
affectation.  It  is  artless,  yet  it  reaches  the  goal  of 
art.  The  rhythms,  especially  of  some  of  the  religious 
pieces,  are  of  a  kind  which  is  beyond  the  reach  of  ef- 
fort. He  has  rightly  called  them  melodies.  Occasion- 
ally there  is,  it  seems  to  me,  a  touch  of  something 
higher,  as  in  the  haunting  refrain  of  the  lyric  "Win- 
ter is  Coming. ' ' 

De  yaller  leafs  are  falling  fas' 
Fur  summer  days  is  been  and  pas' 
The  air  is  blowm'  mighty  cold, 
Like  it  done  in  days  of  old. 

But  this  is  rare.  Oftenest  the  characteristic  note  is 
humor,  or  tender  melancholy  relieved  by  a  philosophy 
of  cheer  and  courage,  and  the  poetic  virtue  is  that  of 
simple  truth.  We  are  reminded  of  no  poet  so  strongly 
as  of  Burns. 

What  Waverley  Carmichael  may  accomplish  in  the 
future  I  do  not  know.  But  certainly  in  this  volume 
he  has  entitled  himself  to  the  gratitude  of  his  own 
race  and  to  the  sympathetic  appreciation  of  all  who 
have  its  interests  and  those  of  true  poetry  at  heart." 

JAMES   HOLLY  HANFORD. 


IN  THE  BLACK  BELT  75 

Mr.  William  Stanley  Braithwaite  speaking  of  his 
poems  had  the  following  to  say : 

"Many  have  claimed  the  mantle  of  Paul  Laurence 
Dunbar,  but  only  upon  the  shoulders  of  Waverley 
Turner  Carmichael  has  it  fallen,  and  he  wears  it  with 
becoming  grace  and  fitness.  For  this  poet,  a  veritable 
child  of  Negro  folk,  gives  expression  to  its  spirit  in 
need  and  language  more  akin  to  the  ante-bellum  'spir- 
ituel'  than  any  writer  I  know.  Like  those  '  black  and 
unknown  bards'  he  sings  because  he  must,  with  all 
their  fervid  imaginativeness,  symbolizations,  poignant 
strains  of  pathos  and  philosophic  humor." 

Mr.  Braithwaite  is  the  best  known  Negro  critic  of 
poetry  in  the  world  today. 

As  for  me  who  has  always  lived  in  the  South  and 
know  the  Southern  Negro  through  and  through,  I  feel 
and  believe  that  Carmichael  has  interpreted  Negro 
life  as  never  before. 

We  hope  and  pray  that  Carmichael  will  live  through 
this  great  ordeal  and  come  back  to  us  and  continue  his 
work  of  interpreting  Negro  life. 

There  are  hundreds  of  other  graduates  and  ex-stu- 
dents who  have  won  distinction  in  other  fields  and  are 
doing  equally  as  well  as  those  who  have  been  men- 
tioned here.  We  have  their  record  at  the  school,  and 
any  one  can  have  them  for  the  asking.  I  only  wish  to 
mention  in  a  brief  way  two  other  graduates  because 
they  have  established  a  first  and  second  prize  at  Snow 
Hill.  They  are  John  W.  Brister  and  Edmond  J. 
O'Neal. 

Several  years  ago  the  late  Misses  Collins  (Ellen  and 
Marguerite)   of  New  York,  two  of  the  most  sainted 


76  TWENTY-FIVE  YEARS 

women  whom  I  ever  met,  established  an  annual  prize 
at  the  school  known  as  the  Sumner  Peace  Prize,  of 
$15.00.  But  at  their  death  this  prize  would  have 
stopped  unless  some  one  had  taken  it  up.  Both  Mr. 
Brister  and  Mr.  O'Neal  had  won  these  prizes  several 
times  while  they  were  in  school.  So  at  the  death  of 
the  Misses  Collins  they  came  forward  and  said  that 
they  would  be  responsible  for  the  prize  each  year  on 
condition  that  the  school  make  a  first  and  second  prize 
instead  of  one,  Mr.  Brister  giving  $10.00  in  gold  for 
the  first  prize  and  Mr.  O  'Neal  giving  $5.00  in  gold  for 
the  second.  This  they  have  done  for  several  years, 
and  they  constantly  assure  me  that  it  will  be  kept  up 
during  their  lifetime.  This  shows  that  our  graduates 
are  carrying  with  them  the  spirit  of  Christ,  "  Freely 
receive,  freely  give. ' ' 


IN  THE  BLACK  BELT  77 


CHAPTER  13. 

The  Solution  of  the  Negro  Problem. 

All  prophecies  pertaining  thus  far  to  the  solution 
of  the  Negro  Problem  have  failed.  Men  in  all  parts 
of  the  country  are  becoming  alarmed  over  the  situa- 
tion and  are  asking,  " whither  are  we  drifting?"  And 
yet  although  everyone  admits  that  there  is  a  Negro 
problem,  few  are  agreed  as  to  the  exact  nature  of  the 
problem,  and  still  fewer  are  agreed  as  to  what  the 
final  answer  should  be. 

Generally  speaking,  the  Negro  problem  consists  of 
twelve  millions  of  people  of  African  descent  living  in 
this  country,  mostly  in  the  Southern  states,  and  form- 
ing one-third  of  the  population  of  this  section  and  one- 
eighth  of  the  entire  population  of  the  United  States. 
Notwithstanding  the  fact  that  we  are  far  from  an 
agreement  as  to  the  answer  to  this  problem,  we  are 
all  agreed  that  the  solution  must  be  sought  in  the  an- 
swers to  the  following  questions:  What  is  to  be  the 
economic,  the  political,  the  civil,  and  the  social  status 
of  the  Negro  in  this  country? 

It  is  true  that  there  are  criminals  in  the  Negro  race 
for  whom  no  legal  form  of  punishment  is  too  severe. 
It  is  also  true  that  the  better  and  best  classes  of  Ne- 
groes are  daily  being  insulted  in  the  streets,  on  the 
street-cars,  on  the  railroads,  at  the  ticket  offices,  at  the 


78  TWENTY-FIVE  YEARS 

baggage  rooms,  the  express  offices,  and  in  fact,  in  all 
places  pertaining  to  public  travel.  They  are  perse- 
cuted, despised,  rejected,  and  discriminated  against 
before  every  court  in  the  South.  Since  the  Negro  is 
now  being  lynched  as  readily  for  his  sins  of  omission 
as  he  is  for  his  sins  of  commission,  it  is  quite  neces- 
sary for  him  when  traveling  in  the  South,  to  keep  con- 
stantly in  telegraphic  communication  with  the  agent 
at  the  station  ahead  as  to  the  movement  of  the  mob. 
In  addition  to  this,  the  Negro  is  subjected  to  many 
other  forms  of  persecution  and  discrimination  in  al- 
most every  walk  of  life.  These  things  go  to  make  up 
what  we  call  the  Negro  problem. 

The  White  Man's  Solution. 

A  large  majority  of  the  white  men  in  the  South  be- 
lieve that  this  problem  is  to  be  solved  by  the  Negro 
"learning  his  place"  and  keeping  in  it.  Though  they 
do  not  say  just  what  this  place  is,  they  purpose  to 
teach  it  to  the  Negro  by  disfranchisement,  by  limiting 
his  education,  by  discrimination  on  the  streets  and  on 
the  railroads,  by  barring  him  from  public  parks,  pub- 
lic libraries,  and  public  amusements  of  any  kind,  by 
insulting  replies  to  courteous  questions,  by  conviction 
for  trivial  offences,  and,  finally,  by  judge  lynch  and 
the  shot  gun.    This  class  is  called  the  rabble. 

There  is  another  class  of  white  men  in  the  South, 
though  fewer  in  number,  who  deprecate  all  such  views 
and  actions  (as  advanced  by  this  first  class).  They 
believe  that  the  Negro  should  have  equal  legal  rights, 
but  that  he  should  be  denied  equal  political  and  educa- 


IN  THE  BLACK  BELT  79 

tional  rights.  They  believe  the  Bible  to  be  the  panacea 
for  all  the  ills  of  the  Negro.  To  bear  out  their  conten- 
tion, they  often  revert  to  the  time  when,  they  say, 
there  was  no  race  problem.  This,  they  say,  was  dur- 
ing slavery,  when  the  master  taught  his  slaves  the 
beneficent  influence  of  the  Holy  Bible.  They  are  now 
appealing  to  the  white  men  of  the  South  to  return  to 
this  practice.  In  this  class  would  fall  a  large  number 
of  politicians,  statesmen,  educators,  and  ministers. 
This  is  called  the  conservative  class. 

There  is  still  a  third  class  of  white  men  in  the 
South,  who  believe  that  the  Negro  is  a  man,  nothing 
more  and  nothing  less.  They  believe  that  under  simi- 
lar circumstances  the  Negro  will  act  as  other  races 
do.  They  contend  that  the  Negro  should  have  equal 
rights  in  every  respect;  they  believe  that  worthy  Ne- 
groes like  worthy  white  men,  should  vote,  and  that 
ignorant  and  vicious  Negroes  like  ignorant  and  vicious 
white  men,  should  not;  that  the  school  money  should 
be  divided  equally  among  the  children  of  the  state  re- 
gardless of  race,  color  or  previous  conditions;  that 
the  Negro  should  be  given  justice  in  all  of  the  courts ; 
that  the  criminal  and  lawless  Negro,  like  the  criminal 
and  lawless  white  man,  should  be  punished  to  the  full 
extent  of  the  law.  They  believe  that  a  strict  adher- 
ence to  this  view  will  result  in  the  final  solution  of  the 
problem.  There  are,  however,  so  few  who  feel  in  this 
way,  and  they  are  so  widely  scattered,  that  they  can 
hardly  be  called  a  class.  The  other  classes  of  white 
people  consider  them  insane  and  accuse  them  of  ad- 
vocating social  equality.  They  are  given  no  voice  in 
the  government  and  their  wishes  are  disregarded  as 


80  TWENTY-FIVE  YEARS 

readily  as  those  of  the  Negro.  They  are  sometimes 
persecuted,  ostracised,  and  harmed  in  every  conceiv- 
able way.  This  class  is  increasing  and  the  two  other 
classes  decreasing. 

The  Negro's  Method  of  Solution. 

There  are  three  classes  of  Negroes  in  the  South,  but 
only  one  desires  a  solution  of  the  problem  and  that  is 
class  number  two,  of  those  I  shall  mention.  Class 
number  one  is  composed  chiefly  of  the  illiterate  and 
superstitious  Negroes.  They  usually  work  on  the 
railroads,  on  the  steamboats,  in  the  large  saw-mills, 
and  on  the  farms  for  wages.  They  have  no  homes  and 
do  not  want  any;  but  float  from  place  to  place.  This 
class  is  contented  to  be  let  alone,  but  is  quick  to  resent 
an  insult,  and  will  shoot  almost  as  readily  as  the  white 
man,  and  make  no  attempt  to  choose  their  victims. 
Among  this  class  are  to  be  found  the  whiskey  seller,  the 
drunkard,  the  gambler,  and  the  criminal  of  the  lowest 
type.  It  is  the  low,  degraded  and  depraved  criminals 
of  this  class  who  stir  up  and  incite  race  hatred,  which 
always  results  in  race  riots.  They  do  not  attend 
church  or  any  other  religious  meeting.  The  better 
class  of  Negroes  are  as  anxious  to  get  rid  of  these  as 
the  white  man. 

The  second  class  is  composed  of  the  renters  of 
farms,  the  owners  of  farms,  of  homes,  of  preachers, 
teachers,  students,  professional  and  business  men. 
They  believe  that  the  Negro  should  be  educated  in  the 
trades  as  well  as  in  the  professions;  that  they  should 
own  homes,  pay  their  taxes  and  perform  their  civic  du- 


IN  THE  BLACK  BELT  81 

ties  like  all  other  citizens  and  that  they  should  possess 
all  of  the  rights  and  privileges  that  are  delegated  to 
them  by  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States.  They 
believe  in  the  purity  of  the  state  and  in  the  sanctity  of 
the  home.  They  are  enduring,  self-sacrificing,  pa- 
tient, and  long  suffering,  and  desire  the  good  of  all. 
It  is  this  class  that  always  assists  in  quelling  race  riots 
and  is  constantly  seeking  the  co-operation  of  the  best 
class  of  white  people  in  order  that  the  relation  between 
the  races  may  be  of  the  most  cordial  nature.  It  is  this 
class  also  who  do  not  lose  their  heads  though  innocent 
members  of  the  race  be  murdered  by  the  mob.  Though 
this  class  is  rapidly  increasing,  it  is  still  far  inferior 
in  number  to  the  first  class. 

The  third  class  is  composed  chiefly  of  the  ante-bel- 
lum Negroes.  They  are  well  advanced  in  age  and  are 
contented  with  their  present  lot.  Many  of  them  have 
waited  for  years  for  the  forty  acres  and  mule  and  hav- 
ing been  disappointed  in  their  expectation,  they  have 
lost  all  hopes.  They  are  fast  losing  sight  on  the  things 
of  this  world  and  gaining  sight  on  the  things  of  the 
world  to  come.  Ofttimes,  they  sing,  "You  may  have 
all  this  world,  but  give  me  Jesus."  They  are  per- 
fectly harmless  and  have  no  earthly  ambition.  This  is 
what  the  white  man  here  calls  a  good  Negro;  for  him 
they  act  as  pall-bearers  when  he  dies  and  for  him  they 
weep  when  he  is  gone.  In  many  instances  they  erect 
monuments  to  his  memory. 

Fallacy  of  the  Master  and  the  Bible  Remedy. 

Since  the  recent  riots  that  have  occurred  in  Georgia, 
North  Carolina,  Tennessee,  Arkansas  and  other  South- 


82  TWENTY-FIVE  YEARS 

ern  States,  many  white  ministers  and  other  prominent 
citizens  of  the  South  have  been  advocating  a  return  to 
the  master  and  Bible  theory  of  slavery  days,  when, 
they  say,  there  was  no  race  problem.  But  every  stu- 
dent of  history  knows  that  at  the  same  time  the  master 
was  carrying  the  Bible  to  his  slaves  this  country  was 
struggling  with  one  of  the  greatest  race  problems  that 
the  world  has  ever  witnessed  and  the  slavery  phase  of 
this  problem  was  settled  by  one  of  the  bloodiest  wars 
in  the  annals  of  history.  Furthermore,  the  student  of 
history  knows  that  the  master  carried  the  lash  more 
often  to  the  slave's  back  than  the  Bible  to  the  slave's 
heart;  that  the  lash  kept  the  slave  in  subjection. 

If  the  relation  between  the  races  now  seems  most 
strained  and  the  solution  of  the  problem  seems  far- 
ther away  than  ever,  we  must  be  candid  and  seek  the 
cause  of  failure  in  the  methods  that  we  have  been 
using.  In  the  past,  the  white  man's  idea  of  the  solu- 
tion has  been  contrary  to  the  Negro 's  idea.  The  white 
man  has  been  trying  to  circumscribe  the  Negro's 
sphere,  at  the  same  time,  the  Negro  has  been  trying  to 
know  the  truth  which  would  make  him  free ;  yet,  both 
claim  to  be  trying  to  solve  the  same  problem.  Be- 
fore a  satisfactory  solution  of  the  problem  can  be  had, 
it  will  be  necessary  for  the  best  white  people  and  the 
best  class  of  Negroes  to  get  together  and  agree  as  to 
what  the  solution  must  be.  Is  it  to  consist  of  the  Ne- 
gro knowing  his  place  and  staying  in  it,  or  is  it  to 
consist  of  the  Negro  knowing  the  truth  and  being 
free?  Which  shall  it  be?  Unless  they  can  agree  as  to 
the  answer  there  can  be  no  satisfactory  solution. 

In  a  democratic  form  of  government  having  one 


IN  THE  BLACK  BELT  83 

language,  one  history,  one  literature,  one  religion,  one 
Bible,  and  one  God,  there  can  be  only  one  man  who  is 
the  sum  total  of  these,  only  one  man  who  is  the  typi- 
cally good  democratic  citizen,  and  this  man  will  be 
known  by  his  accomplishments  and  not  by  the  color 
of  his  skin.  If  we  should  have  two  types,  two  men, 
then  we  must  have  two  governments,  two  languages, 
two  histories,  two  literatures,  two  religions,  two  Bi- 
bles, and  two  Gods. 

If  the  shiftless,  ignorant,  superstitious,  and  crim- 
inal class  of  Negroes  is  increasing,  it  is  because  the 
ruling  class  of  white  men  have  been  limiting  his  edu- 
cation, disfranchising  him,  and  in  other  ways  trying 
to  doom  him  to  serfdom.  The  great  race  riot  in  At- 
lanta was  simply  the  culmination  of  the  ten  months' 
campaigning  of  race  hatred.  Men  who  are  now  writ- 
ing resolutions  and  sound  and  sane  editorials,  were 
then  rivaling  each  other  in  their  abuse  of  the  Negro. 
The  nominee  for  governor  seemingly,  was  to  be  given 
to  the  one  who  could  prove  himself  the  greatest  enemy 
of  the  Negro.  It  is  a  divine  and  immutable  law  that 
if  we  sow  the  wind  we  will  reap  the  whirlwind. 

Only  One  Road  to  the  Solution. 

Lynchings  and  mobs  will  not  solve  the  problem,  for 
it  has  been  proven  that  such  actions  beget  crimes.  De- 
priving him  of  educational  advantages  and  disfran- 
chising him,  will  not  suffice,  for  on  the  one  hand  this 
method  produces  ignorant  Negroes,  and  on  the  other 
hand  it  increases  in  the  white  man  the  belief  that  the 
Negro  has  no  rights  which  a  white  man  is  bound  to 


84  TWENTY-FIVE  YEARS 

respect.  These  two  states  of  mind  in  the  last  analysis 
will  always  produce  crime.  The  master  and  Bible  the- 
ory will  not  solve  it,  because  the  criminal  and  lawless 
Negro  does  not  attend  church.  There  is  but  one  true 
solution  and  that  lies  in  compulsory  education  for  all 
the  children  of  the  state  with  religious,  moral  and  in- 
dustrial training.  If  the  South  is  sincere  in  its  ef- 
forts to  help  the  Negro,  or  even  if  the  ministers  and 
other  citizens  who  are  now  filling  the  daily  press  with 
suggestions  as  to  the  practical  solution  of  this  problem 
are  sincere,  they  will  advocate  the  enacting  of  compul- 
sory educational  laws  and  see  to  it  that  all  children 
between  the  ages  of  six  and  fourteen  are  kept  in 
school.  They  will  also  advocate  a  more  equitable  divi- 
sion of  the  school  fund  between  the  races.  The  great 
factor  in  the  solution  of  this  problem  is  education  and 
the  Negro  schools  are  the  hope  of  the  race. 

The  Attitude  of  the  North  Towards  This  Problem. 

Just  now,  the  attitude  of  the  North  towards  this 
problem  is  that  of  an  onlooker  and  well  wisher.  For 
a  number  of  years  the  South  has  been  saying  to  the 
North,  "  Hands  off,  we  understand  the  Negro  and  we 
can  solve  our  own  problem."  The  North,  seemingly, 
has  heeded  this  injunction  and  the  press  and  politi- 
cians of  the  North,  barring  a  few,  have  been  inclined 
to  take  sides  with  the  so-called  conservative  class  of 
white  men  of  the  South. 

The  philanthropist  of  the  North,  however,  while  be- 
ing a  friend  to  the  white  South  has  been  none  the  less 
a  friend  to  the  black  South,  and  has  kept  constantly 


IN  THE  BLACK  BELT  85 

aiding  Negro  education  and  it  is  the  schools  thus  sup- 
ported that  are  doing  the  most  effective  work  in  the 
uplifting  of  the  race.  It  was  the  wise  guidance,  judi- 
cious and  calm  leadership  of  the  men  in  these  schools 
that  saved  the  day  at  Atlanta.  All  of  these  schools 
have  the  record  of  their  graduates  and  ex-students 
opened  to  the  public  for  inspection.  And  an  impartial 
inspection  of  these  records  will  show  that  these  stu- 
dents and  graduates  have  made  since  leaving  school, 
according  to  their  circumstances,  as  creditable  a  mark 
as  the  graduates  and  ex-students  from  any  of  our 
Northern  schools.  These  schools  do  not  give  college 
training. 

In  these  perilous  times  when  the  race  is  passing 
through  such  trying  ordeals,  and  when  the  souls  of 
men  are  being  tried,  I  trust  that  our  friends  will  not 
forsake  us.  Our  industrial  schools  and  colleges  and 
the  better  element  of  the  race,  need  their  sympathy, 
encouragement,  and  assistance  now  as  never  before. 
My  prayer  is  for  a  double  portion  of  their  spirit  and 
an  increased  amount  of  their  assistance. 

The  recent  race  troubles  should  not  discourage  us 
or  our  friends.  In  fact,  Ave  should  be  encouraged, 
for  during  these  troubles  the  better  element  of  the 
race  has  been  severely  tried  and  they  have  stood  the 
test.  Everywhere  their  advice  has  been  for  modera- 
tion, patience,  and  forbearance.  It  is  true,  we  are 
troubled  on  every  side,  yet  not  distressed ;  we  are  per- 
plexed, but  not  in  despair;  persecuted,  but  not  for- 
saken ;  cast  down,  but  not  destroyed.  Our  records  will 
show  that  we  have  been  faithful  over  a  few  things, 
may  we  not  retain  the  faith  and  trust  of  friends? 


86  TWENTY-FIVE  YEARS 


CHAPTEE  14. 

The  Geeatest  Menace  of  the  South. 

In  every  age  there  are  great  and  pressing  problems 
to  be  solved, — problems  whose  solution  will  have 
seemingly,  a  far  reaching  and  lasting  effect  upon  the 
economic  life  of  the  country  concerned.  It  was  the 
case  in  this  country  from  its  very  beginning  and  the 
same  condition  obtains  today,  although  each  section 
of  the  country  has  its  own  peculiar  problems  the  true 
American  citizen  recognizes  the  fact  that  the  success 
of  one  section  in  solving  its  problems  will  be  bene- 
ficial to  the  entire  nation. 

Perhaps,  no  section  of  this  country  has  been  con- 
fronted with  more  difficult  problems  than  the  South. 
I  therefore,  wish  to  present  what  I  consider  to  be  the 
greatest  menace  of  this  section,  not  as  a  prophet  fore- 
telling future  events, — but  humbly  expressing  my 
views  of  the  situation  after  careful  study. 

If  you  were  to  ask  the  average  white  man  of  the 
South  today  what  is  the  greatest  menace  to  this  sec- 
tion, his  answer,  undoubtedly,  would  be,  the  Negro 
and  Negro  domination.  At  least  this  would  be  the 
answer  of  the  politician.  That  he  would  take  this 
view,  is  shown  by  the  great  amount  of  legislation  that 
has  been  enacted,  aiming  either  directly  or  indirectly 
to  retard  the  Negro's  progress.    I  do  not  believe  that 


IN  THE  BLACK  BELT  87 

there  has  been  one  piece  of  legislation  enacted  in  the 
South  within  the  last  thirty  years  for  the  express  pur- 
pose of  promoting  the  Negro's  welfare.  This  does 
not  mean,  however,  that  the  entire  white  South  is 
against  the  Negro  or  that  it  means  to  oppose  his  ad- 
vancement. There  are  thousands  of  white  men  and 
women  throughout  the  length  and  breadth  of  the 
South,  who  are  today,  laboring  almost  incessantly  for 
the  advancement  of  the  Negro.  To  these,  we  owe  a 
great  debt  of  gratitude,  and  to  these  should  be  given 
much  credit  for  what  has  been  accomplished.  This 
class  of  white  southerns  are  not,  as  a  rule,  politicians 
and  it  is  seldom,  if  ever,  they  are  elected  to  office. 
When  we  speak  of  the  average  southern  white  man 
then,  we  have  particular  reference  to  the  great  horde 
of  office  seekers  and  politicians  that  infest  the  entire 
south-land.  It  is  this  class  that  will  tell  you  that  Ne- 
gro domination  is  the  greatest  menace  to  the  South. 

Now,  Negro  domination  may  be  a  menace  to  the 
South,  but  it  is  certainly  not  the  greatest.  Neither  is 
the  extermination  of  our  forests  to  be  greatly  feared. 
There  are  organizations  and  societies  on  foot  in  all 
parts  of  the  South  for  the  conservation  of  our  forests. 

Southern  citizenship  is  suffering  much  from  child 
labor,  but  even  this,  although  being  a  great  danger  to 
our  future  development  and  prosperity,  cannot  rightly 
be  classed  as  our  greatest  menace.  The  one  thing  to- 
day, in  which  we  stand  in  greatest  danger,  is  the  loss 
of  the  fertility  of  the  soil.  If  we  should  lose  this,  as 
we  are  gradually  doing,  then  all  is  lost.  If  we  should 
save  it,  then  all  other  things  will  be  added.  Our  great 
need  is  the  conservation  and  preservation  of  the  soil. 


88  TWENTY-FIVE  YEARS 

The  increased  crops  which  we  have  in  the  South  oc- 
casionally, are  not  due  to  improved  methods  of  farm- 
ing, but  to  increased  acreage.  Thousands  of  acres  of 
new  land  are  added  each  year  and  our  increase  in  farm 
production  is  due  to  the  strength  of  these  fresh  lands. 
There  is  not  much  more  woodland  to  be  taken  in  as 
new  farm  lands,  for  this  source  has  been  well  nigh 
exhausted.  We  must  then,  within  a  few  years,  expect  a 
gradual  reduction  in  the  farm  production  of  the  South. 
Already  the  old  farm  lands  that  have  been  in  cultiva- 
tion for  the  past  fifty  or  fifty-five  years  are  practically 
worn  out.  I  have  seen  in  my  day  where  forty  acres 
of  land  twenty  or  twenty -five  years  ago  would  produce 
from  twenty  to  twenty-five  bales  of  cotton  each  year, 
and  from  800  to  1000  bushels  of  corn.  Now,  these  forty 
acres  will  not  produce  more  than  eight  or  nine  bales  of 
cotton  and  hardly  enough  corn  to  feed  two  horses.  In 
fact,  one  small  family  cannot  obtain  a  decent  support 
from  the  land  which  twenty  years  ago  supported  three 
families  in  abundance.  This  farm  is  not  on  the  hill- 
side, neither  has  it  been  worn  away  by  erosion.  It  is 
situated  in  the  lowlands,  in  the  black  prairie,  and  is 
considered  the  best  farm  on  a  large  plantation.  This 
condition  obtains  in  all  parts  of  the  South  today.  This 
constant  deterioration  of  land,  this  gradual  reduction 
of  crops  year  after  year,  if  kept  up  for  the  next  fifty 
years,  will  surely  prove  disastrous  to  the  South. 

Practically,  all  the  land  in  the  black  belt  of  the  South 
is  cultivated  by  Negroes  and  the  farm  production  has 
decreased  so  rapidly  during  the  last  ten  or  fifteen  years 
that  the  average  Negro  farmer  hardly  makes  sufficient 
to  pay  his  rent  and  buy  the  few  necessaries  of  life. 


IN  THE  BLACK  BELT  89 

Of  course,  here  and  there  where  a  tenant  has  been 
lucky  enough  to  get  hold  of  some  new  land,  he  makes  a 
good  crop,  but  after  three  or  four  years  of  cultivation, 
his  crop  begins  to  decrease  and  this  decrease  is  kept 
up  at  a  certain  ratio  as  long  as  he  keeps  the  land.  In- 
stead of  improving,  the  tenant's  condition  becomes 
worse  each  year  until  he  finds  it  impossible  to  support 
his  family  on  the  farm.  Farm  after  farm  is  being 
abandoned  or  given  up  to  the  care  of  the  old  men  and 
women.  Already,  most  of  these  are  too  old  and  feeble 
to  do  effective  work. 

Now,  the  chief  cause  of  these  farms  becoming  less 
productive,  is  the  failure  on  the  part  of  the  farmers  to 
add  something  to  the  land  after  they  have  gathered 
their  crops.  They  seem  to  think  that  the  land  con- 
tains an  inexhaustible  supply  of  plant  food.  Another 
cause  of  this  deficiency  of  the  soil  is  the  failure  of  the 
farmer  to  rotate  his  crop.  There  are  farms  being 
cultivated  in  the  South  today  where  the  same  piece 
of  land  has  been  planted  in  cotton  every  year  for  forty 
or  fifty  years.  Forty  years  ago,  I  am  told  by  reliable 
authority,  that  this  same  land  would  yield  from  one 
bale  to  one  and  a  half  per  acre.  And  today  it  will  take 
from  four  to  six  acres  to  produce  one  bale. 

Still  another  cause  for  the  deterioration  of  the  soil 
is  erosion.  There  is  practically  no  effort  put  forth  on 
the  tenant's  part  to  prevent  his  farm  from  washing 
away.  The  hill-side  and  other  rolling  lands  are  not 
terraced  and  after  being  in  use  four  or  five  years, 
practically  all  of  these  lands  are  washed  away  and  as 
farm  lands  they  are  entirely  abandoned.  Not  only  are 
the  hillside  lands  unprotected  from  the  beating  rains 


90  TWENTY-FIVE  YEARS 

and  flowing  streams,  but  the  bottom  or  lowlands  are 
not  properly  drained,  and  the  sand  washed  down  from 
the  hill,  the  chaff  and  raft  from  previous  rains  soon 
fill  the  ditches  and  creeks  and  almost  any  ordinary  rain 
will  cause  an  overflow  of  these  streams. 

Under  these  conditions  an  average  crop  is  impos- 
sible even  in  the  best  of  years.  At  present,  the  South 
does  not  produce  one-half  of  the  foodstuff  that  it  con- 
sumes and  if  the  present  condition  of  things  continue 
for  the  next  fifty  years,  this  section  of  the  country  will 
be  on  the  verge  of  starvation  and  famines  will  be  a 
frequent  occurrence.  Of  course,  Negro  starvation  will 
come  first,  but  white  man  starvation  will  surely  follow. 
I  believe,  therefore,  that  I  am  justified  in  saying  that 
there  is  even  more  danger  in  Negro  starvation  than 
there  is  in  Negro  domination. 

I  have  noticed  in  this  country  that  the  sins  of  the 
races  are  contagious.  If  the  Negro  in  a  community 
be  lazy,  indifferent,  and  careless  about  his  farm,  the 
white  man  in  the  community  will  soon  fall  into  the 
same  habit.  On  the  other  hand,  if  the  white  man  is 
smart,  industrious,  energetic  and  persevering  in  his 
general  makeup,  the  Negro  will  soon  fall  into  line ;  so 
after  all,  whatever  helps  one  race  in  the  South  will 
help  the  other  and  whatever  degrades  one  race  in  the 
South,  sooner  or  later  will  degrade  the  other.  But 
you  may  reply  to  this  assertion  by  saying  that  the  Ne- 
gro can  go  to  the  city  and  make  an  independent  living 
for  himself  and  family,  but  you  forget  that  all  real 
wealth  must  come  from  the  soil  and  that  the  city  can- 
not prosper  unless  the  country  is  prosperous.  When 
the  country  fails,  the  city  feels  the  effect;  when  the 


IN  THE  BLACK  BELT  91 

country  weeps,  the  city  moans ;  when  agriculture  dies, 
all  die.  Such  are  the  conditions  which  face  us  today. 
Now  for  the  remedy. 

It  is  worth  while  to  remember  that  there  are  ten  es- 
sential elements  of  plant  food.  If  the  supply  of  any 
one  of  the  elements  fails,  the  crop  will  fail.  These 
ten  elements  are  carbon  and  oxygen  taken  into  the 
leaves  of  the  plant  from  the  air  as  carbon  dioxide,  hy- 
drogen, a  constituent  of  water  absorbed  through  the 
plant  roots ;  nitrogen,  taken  from  the  soil  by  all  plants 
also  secured  from  the  air  by  legumes.  The  other  ele- 
ments are  phosphorus,  potassium,  magnesium,  cal- 
cium, iron  and  sulphur,  all  of  which  are  secured  from 
the  soil.  The  soil  nitrogen  is  contained  in  the  organic 
matter  or  humus,  and  to  maintain  the  supply  of  nitro- 
gen, we  should  keep  the  soil  well  stored  with  organic 
matter,  making  liberal  use  of  clover  or  other  legumes 
which  have  power  to  secure  nitrogen  from  the  inex- 
haustible supply  in  the  air. 

It  is  interesting  to  note  that  one  of  the  ablest  chem- 
ists in  this  country,  Prof.  E.  W.  Clark  of  the  U.  S. 
Geological  Survey,  has  said  that  an  acre  of  ground 
seven  inches  deep  contains  sufficient  iron  to  produce 
one  hundred  bushels  of  corn  every  year  for  200,000 
years,  sufficient  calcium  to  produce  one  hundred  bush- 
els of  corn  or  one  bale  of  cotton  each  year  for  55,000 
years,  enough  magnesium  to  produce  such  a  crop  7,000 
years,  enough  sulphur  for  10,000  years  and  potassium 
for  2,600  years,  but  only  enough  phosporus  for  130 
years.  The  nitrogen  resting  upon  the  surface  of  an 
acre  of  ground  is  sufficient  to  produce  one  hundred 
bushels  of  corn  or  a  bale  of  cotton  for  700,000  years ; 


92  TWENTY-FIVE  YEARS 

but  only  enough  in  the  plowed  soil  to  produce  fifty 
such  crops.  In  other  words,  there  are  enough  of  eight 
of  the  elements  of  plant  food  in  the  ordinary  soil  to 
produce  100  bushels  of  corn  per  acre  or  a  bale  of  cot- 
ton per  acre  for  each  year  for  2,600  years;  but  only 
enough  of  the  other  two,  phosphorus  and  nitrogen,  to 
produce  such  crops  for  forty  or  fifty  years. 

Let  us  grant  that  most  of  our  farm  lands  in  the 
South  have  been  in  cultivation  for  fifty  or  seventy-five 
years,  and  in  many  instances  for  one  hundred  years,  it 
is  readily  seen  that  practically  all  of  the  phosphorus 
and  nitrogen  in  the  plowed  soil  have  been  exhausted. 
Is  it  any  wonder  then  that  we  are  having  such  poor 
crops?  The  wonder  is  that  our  crops  have  kept  up 
so  well.  Unless  a  radical  change  is  made  in  our  mode 
of  farming,  we  must  expect  less  and  less  crops  each 
year  until  we  have  no  crops,  or  such  little  that  we  can 
hardly  pay  the  rent. 

To  improve  and  again  make  fertile  our  soils,  we 
must  restore  to  them  the  phosphorus  and  nitrogen 
which  have  been  used  up  in  the  seventy-five  or  more 
crops  that  we  have  gathered  from  them.  This  is  a 
herculean  task  but  this  is  what  confronts  us  and  I  for 
one,  believe  we  can  accomplish  it.  By  the  proper  ro- 
tation of  crops,  including  oats,  clover,  cowpeas,  as  well 
as  cotton  and  corn,  and  a  liberal  use  of  barn-yard 
manure  and  cotton  seed  fertilizer,  all  of  the  necessary 
elements  of  plant  food  can  be  restored  to  our  worn  out 
soil.  But  the  proper  use  of  these  require  much  pains- 
taken  study. 

The  black  as  well  as  the  white  should  give  this  mat- 
ter serious  consideration.     The  landlords  and  the  ten- 


IN  THE  BLACK  BELT  93 

ants  should  co-operate  in  this  great  work.  The  mer- 
chants and  bankers  must  lend  their  aid  and  influence, 
preachers  and  teachers  should  be  pioneers  in  this 
movement  to  save  our  common  country.  Our  agricul- 
tural colleges  should  imprint  their  courses  of  study  in 
something  more  than  their  annual  catalogues.  They 
should  be  imprinted  in  the  minds  and  hearts  of  their 
students,  and  especially  those  who  are  to  do  farm 
work.  Thus  far,  but  very  little  general  good  has  been 
accomplished  by  these  schools.  The  reason  is  that  the 
farmers,  those  who  till  the  soil,  have  not  had  access 
to  these  schools  and  those  who  attend  are  not  the  farm- 
ing class,  and  do  not  take  to  farming  as  their  life's 
work.  The  man  who  works  the  soil  must  be  taught 
how  to  farm.  We  have  in  this  state  nine  purely  agri- 
cultural schools,  each  of  which  is  a  white  institution. 
It  is  true  that  some  agricultural  training  is  given  for 
Negroes  at  Normal,  Montgomery  and  Tuskegee,  but 
these  are  not  purely  agricultural  schools  and  the  great 
mass  of  Negro  farmers  cannot  hope  to  attend  them. 
If  the  Negro  is  to  remain  the  farming  class  in  the 
Black  Belt  of  the  South,  then  he  must  be  taught  at 
least  the  rudiments  of  the  modern  methods  of  im- 
proved farming.  He  must  have  agricultural  schools 
and  must  be  encouraged  to  attend  them.  The  loss  of 
the  fertility  of  the  soil  is  the  greatest  menace  of  the 
South.  How  can  we  regain  this  lost  fertility,  is  the 
greatest  question  of  the  hour. 


94  TWENTY-FIVE  YEARS 


CHAPTER  15. 

The  Negro  Exodus. 

The  Negro  has  remained  in  the  South  almost  as  a 
solid  mass  since  his  emancipation.  This,  in  itself 
shows  that  he  loves  the  South,  and  if  he  is  now  mi- 
grating to  the  East,  North  and  West  by  the  hundreds 
and  thousands,  there  must  be  a  cause  for  it. 

We  should  do  our  best  to  find  out  these  causes  and 
at  least  suggest  the  remedy,  if  we  cannot  accomplish 
it.  The  time  has  come  for  plain  speaking  on  the  part 
of  us  all.  It  will  do  us  no  good  to  try  to  hide  the  facts, 
because  ''truth  crushed  to  earth  will  rise  again." 

In  the  first  place,  the  Negro  in  this  country  is  op- 
pressed. This  oppression  is  greatest  where  the  Negro 
population  is  greatest.  The  Negro  population  hap- 
pens to  be  greater  in  the  South  than  in  the  North, 
therefore,  he  is  more  oppressed  in  the  South  than  in 
the  North. 

Take  the  counties  in  our  own  state.  Some  are  known 
as  white  counties  and  others  as  black  counties.  In  the 
white  counties  the  Negro  is  given  better  educational 
opportunities  than  in  the  black  counties.  I  have  in 
mind  one  Black  Belt  county  where  the  white  child  is 
given  fifteen  dollars  a  year  for  his  education  and  the 
Negro  child  thirty  cents  a  year.  See  the  late  Dr. 
Booker  T.  Washington's  article,  "Is  the  Negro  Hav- 


IN  THE  BLACK  BELT  95 

ing  a  Fair  Chance?"  Now  these  facts  are  generally 
known  throughout  this  State  by  both  white  and  black. 
And  we  all  know  that  this  is  unjust.    It  is  oppression. 

This  oppression  shows  itself  in  many  other  ways. 
Take  for  example  the  railroads  running  through  the 
rural  sections  of  the  South.  There  are  many  flag  sta- 
tions where  hundreds  of  our  people  get  off  and  on 
train.  The  railroads  have  at  these  little  stops  a  plat- 
form about  six  feet  square,  only  one  coach  stops  at  this 
point ;  the  Negro  women,  girls  and  boys  are  compelled 
to  get  off  and  on  the  train  sometimes  in  water  and  in 
the  ditches  because  there  are  no  provisions  made  for 
them  otherwise. 

Again,  take  the  matter  of  the  franchise.  We  all 
agree  that  ignorant  Negroes  should  not  be  entrusted 
with  this  power,  but  we  all  feel  that  where  a  Negro 
has  been  smart  and  industrious  in  getting  an  educa- 
tion and  property  and  pays  his  taxes,  he  should  be 
represented.  Taxation  without  representation  is  just 
as  unjust  today  as  it  was  in  1776.  It  is  just  as  unfair 
for  the  Negro  as  it  is  to  the  white  man,  and  we  all, 
both  white  and  black,  know  this.  We  may  shut  our 
eyes  to  this  great  truth,  as  sometimes  we  do,  but  it  is 
unjust  just  the  same. 

Take  the  matter  of  the  courts.  There  is  no  justice 
unless  the  Negro  has  a  case  against  another  Negro. 
When  he  has  a  case  against  a  white  man  you  can  tell 
what  the  decision  will  be  just  as  soon  as  you  know  the 
nature  of  the  case,  unless  some  strong  white  man  will 
come  to  the  Negro's  rescue.  This,  too,  is  generally 
known,  and  the  Negro  does  not  expect  justice. 

None  of  us  have  forgotten  the  recent  campaign  of 


96  TWENTY-FIVE  YEARS 

Mr.  Underwood  and  Mr.  Hobson  for  United  States 
Senator  from  this  State.  Mr.  Underwood's  support- 
ers attacked  Mr.  Hobson  because  he  defended  the  Ne- 
gro soldiers  when  he  was  Representative,  and  Mr. 
Hobson 's  supporters  attacked  Mr.  Underwood  because 
they  said  that  he  had  a  Negro  secretary  in  Washing- 
ton. Any  politician  who  dares  defend  a  Negro,  how- 
ever just  the  cause  may  be,  is  doomed  to  political 
death.    This  is  another  fact  which  we  all  know. 

As  yet,  there  has  been  no  concerted  actions  on  the 
part  of  the  white  people  to  stop  mob  violence.  I  know 
a  few  plantations,  however,  where  the  owners  will  not 
allow  their  Negroes  to  be  arrested  unless  the  officer 
first  consults  them,  and  these  Negroes  idolize  these 
white  men  as  gods,  and  so  far  not  one  of  these  Negroes 
has  gone  North.  I  repeat  that  there  are  out-croppings 
of  these  oppressions  everywhere  in  this  country,  but 
they  show  themselves  most  where  the  Negroes  are  in 
largest  numbers. 

All  of  these  sorrows  the  Negro  has  endured  with 
patience  and  long  suffering,  and  they  may  be  all 
classed  as  the  secondary  cause  of  this  great  exodus. 

The  primary  cause  is  economics.  The  storms  and 
floods  destroy  crops  in  the  Black  Belt  section.  These 
people  are  hungry,  they  are  naked,  they  have  no  corn 
and  had  no  cotton;  so  they  are  without  food  and 
clothes.  "What  else  can  they  do  but  go  away  in  search 
of  work?  There  are  a  great  many  wealthy  white  men 
here  and  there  throughout  the  Black  Belt  section. 
They  have  large  plantations  which  need  the  ditches 
cleared  and  new  ones  made  to  properly  drain  their 
farms.     They  could  have  given  much  work  to  these 


IN  THE  BLACK  BELT  97 

destitute  people;  but  what  have  they  done?  Nothing. 
They  say  that  it  is  a  pity  for  the  Negro  to  go  away  in 
such  large  numbers,  and  so  it  is,  but  that  will  not  stop 
them.  They  have  it  in  their  power  to  stop  them  by 
making  the  Negro's  economic  condition  better  here. 

The  South  must  do  more  than  make  cotton  and  corn ; 
it  must  begin  to  manufacture  some  of  the  things  that 
it  uses.  Why  should  we  send  our  raw  material  to  the 
North  to  be  manufactured?  Practically  all  the  fur- 
niture we  use  comes  from  the  North  and  they  get  the 
timber  from  us.  The  South  must  be  both  a  manufac- 
turing as  well  as  a  farming  section,  if  it  would  hold 
its  own  with  the  other  sections  of  this  great  country. 
The  capitalists  of  the  South  must  turn  loose  their 
money  if  this  section  would  come  into  its  own. 

Thus  far,  the  average  white  man  of  the  South  has 
been  interested  in  the  Negro  from  a  selfish  point  of 
view.  He  must  now  become  interested  in  him  from  a 
humanitarian  point  of  view.  He  must  be  interested  in 
his  educational,  moral  and  religious  welfare.  We 
know  that  we  have  many  ignorant,  vicious,  and  crim- 
inal Negroes,  which  are  a  disgrace  to  any  people,  but 
they  are  ignorant  because  they  have  not  had  a  chance. 
Why  I  know  one  county  in  this  State  today  with  10,000 
Negro  children  of  school  age  and  only  4,000  of  these 
are  in  school,  according  to  the  report  of  the  Superin- 
tendent of  Education.  We  cannot  expect  ignorant 
people  to  act  like  intelligent  ones,  and  no  amount  of 
abuse  will  make  them  better. 

We  know  that  our  race  is  weak  and  that  the  white 
race  is  strong.  We  know  also  that  our  race  is  sick 
and  that  the  white  race  is  well  or  whole.    Now,  how 


98  TWENTY-FIVE  YEAKS 

should  the  strong  treat  the  weak?  How  should  the 
whole  treat  the  sick?  Would  a  strong  man  say,  here 
is  a  weak  man  with  a  heavy  burden,  therefore,  I  will 
put  more  upon  him?  Would  a  well  man  say,  here  is  a 
sick  man,  therefore,  I  shall  give  him  less  medical 
treatment?  Then  why  do  you  say,  here  is  the  ignorant 
Negro,  therefore  let  us  give  him  less  educational  op- 
portunities than  we  give  the  white  man?  If  the  white 
man  would  be  logical  in  this  particular,  he  would  say 
in  the  courts,  because  he  is  ignorant  let  us  make  his 
punishment  less  severe ;  because  he  is  weak,  let  us  pro- 
tect him,  because  he  is  ignorant,  let  us  give  him  greater 
educational  opportunities.  But  this  has  not  been  done. 
There  has  not  been  one  dollar  increase  in  the  Negro 
public  school  fund  in  the  rural  districts  in  twenty 
years ;  if  anything,  it  is  less  today  than  it  was  twenty 
years  ago. 

Sometimes  we  hear  it  said  that  the  white  man  of  the 
South  knows  the  Negro  better  than  anybody  else,  but 
the  average  white  man  of  the  South  only  knows  the 
ignorant,  vicious  and  criminal  class  of  Negroes  bet- 
ter than  anybody  else.  He  knows  little  of  the  best 
class  of  Negroes.  I  am  glad  to  say,  however,  that 
there  are  a  few  Southern  white  men  who  know  the 
better  class  and  know  them  intimately  and  are  doing 
what  they  can  to  better  the  Negro's  condition.  I 
would  to  God  that  the  number  of  these  few  could  be 
increased  a  hundred  fold. 

We  used  to  deride  the  North  for  giving  the  Negro  a 
chance  to  spend  a  dollar  while  withholding  from  him 
the  opportunity  to  make  one.  But  in  the  Providence 
of  God  all  this  has  been  changed  by  the  great  war  in 


IN  THE  BLACK  BELT  99 

Europe,  which  has  created  a  labor  scarcity  in  the 
North,  East  and  West,  and  the  Negro  is  now  being 
given  a  chance  to  make  a  dollar  there  as  well  as  spend 
one.  The  white  man  of  the  North  is  due  no  special 
credit  for  this,  the  credit  belongs  to  God.  He  is  the 
Eighteous  Judge  of  all  the  earth  and  in  the  end  He 
will  do  right. 

We  will  hear  many  tales  of  the  sufferings  of  these 
people  who  go  from  this  section.  Many  will  die  and 
some  will  come  back,  but  still  some  will  never  return. 
You  remember  the  fate  of  the  Pilgrims,  and  the  early 
colonists  who  first  came  to  this  country.  You  also 
know  the  fate  of  the  men  in  the  world  war ;  many  must 
die  that  some  be  saved.  It  behooves  us  of  the  South 
who  remain  here,  both  white  and  black,  to  re-dedicate 
ourselves  to  unselfish  service  and  try  more  and  more 
each  day  of  our  lives  to  live  up  to  the  great  principle 
laid  down  in  the  memorable  Atlanta  speech  by  the  im- 
mortal Booker  T.  Washington  when  he  said:  "In  all 
things  that  are  purely  social  we  can  be  as  separate  as 
the  fingers,  yet  one  as  the  hand  in  all  things  essential 
to  mutual  progress." 


100  TWENTY-FIVE  YEARS 


CHAPTER    16. 

The  Negro  and  the  Public  Schools  op  the  South. 

Too  much  praise  cannot  be  given  to  the  General 
Education  Board,  Dr.  Dillard  and  Mr.  Rosenwald,  and 
others  for  what  they  have  done  and  are  doing  to  im- 
prove Negro  public  schools  of  the  South,  for  in  the  last 
analysis  it  is  there  where  the  great  masses  of  Negro 
children  must  be  educated. 

We  have  in  the  South,  as  every  one  knows,  a  dual 
system  of  public  schools,  one  for  the  whites  and  one 
for  the  Negroes.  This  accounts  in  part  for  our  poor 
schools  for  both  white  and  colored.  Such  a  system  is 
expensive  and,  of  course,  the  Negro  gets  the  worst  of 
the  bargain.  This  is  not  surprising  to  him;  he  ex- 
pects it  in  all  such  cases.  He  has  been  taught  to  ex- 
pect only  a  half  loaf  where  others  get  a  whole  one, 
but  in  some  cases  he  gets  practically  nothing  from  the 
State  for  education.  For  an  instance,  I  know  four  or 
five  Negro  public  schools  in  the  Black  Belt  that  get 
$37.00  for  the  school  term  of  four  months.  It  would 
be  hard  to  figure  out  how  a  teacher  can  live  in  these 
days  on  $9.25  per  month.  But,  as  I  have  said,  the 
agencies  that  I  have  mentioned  above  have  done  much 
and  are  doing  more  to  improve  these  conditions. 

They  endeavor  to  work  with  or  through  the  State 
and  county  officials  wherever  it  can  be  done.     This  I 


IN  THE  BLACK  BELT  101 

think  is  perfectly  right  and  proper  because  the  State 
must  in  the  end  direct  the  education  of  its  subjects. 
But  where  this  cannot  be  done,  I  think  provision  should 
be  made  for  the  thousands  who  are  now  being  ne- 
glected. 

Ever  since  I  succeeded  in  getting  the  late  Miss  Anna 
T.  Jeanes  of  Philadelphia  to  give  so  largely  towards 
the  Negro  public  schools  of  the  South,  I  have  been 
thinking  how  this  work  could  be  carried  on  in  har- 
mony with  the  State  and  county  officials.  The  General 
Education  Board,  Dr.  Dillard  and  Mr.  Rosenwald  have 
gone  a  long  way  towards  solving  this  problem. 

At  the  present  time  every  Southern  State  has  a 
Superintendent  of  Education  and  a  County  Superin- 
tendent. These  officers  are  elected  by  the  people 
(white  people,  of  course).  Recently,  however,  there 
have  been  two  other  offices  created,  State  Supervisor 
of  Education  for  the  Negro  and  County  Supervisor. 
These  officers  are  selected  and  not  elected.  I  think  the 
offices  came  about  as  a  result  of  the  efforts  of  the 
General  Education  Board  and  Dr.  Dillard,  and  I  think 
that  the  State  Supervisors  of  Education  are  selected 
largely  through  them. 

Thus  far  all  of  the  State  Supervisors  for  Negro 
schools  have  been  white  men,  and  they  in  turn  have 
been  given  the  power  to  select  the  County  Supervisor 
for  the  Negro  schools,  all  of  which  are  colored. 

These  white  men  are  not  always  able  to  get  the 
most  efficient  persons  for  such  work  because  I  know 
of  a  few  County  Supervisors  here  and  there  who  are 
not  competent  to  do  the  work  that  has  been  intrusted 
to  them. 


102  TWENTY-FIVE  YEARS 

Now  as  the  Negro  has  nothing  to  say  as  to  who 
should  be  his  State  or  County  Superintendent  of  Edu- 
cation, it  seems  that  in  the  matter  of  his  State  and 
County  Supervisors  he  should  have  a  word.  (I  think 
it  is  right  and  proper  that  the  great  funds  for  Negro 
education  should  be  spent  through  the  State  and 
county  officials  wherever  it  can  be  done.) 

The  State  Superintendent  ought  to;  be  given  the 
power  to  select  the  most  competent  Negro  educator 
to  be  State  Supervisor  of  Negro  Schools,  and  the 
County  Superintendent  ought  to  be  given  the  same. 
Furthermore,  as  each  State  has  a  Negro  Education 
Association  which  meets  once  a  year,  I  think  this  As- 
sociation should  recommend  to  the  State  Superinten- 
dent of  Education  a  number  of  persons  from  whom 
he  may  select  the  State  Supervisor.  In  each  county 
we  have  an  organization,  which  is  known  as  the  County 
Teacher  Institute.  This  organization  could  recom- 
mend two  or  more  persons  to  the  County  Superinten- 
dent from  whom  he  might  select  the  County  Super- 
visor. 

I  feel  and  think  in  this  way  because  in  order  to 
really  help  the  people  one  must  go  amongst  them  and 
know  of  their  hardships,  struggles,  desires,  sorrows, 
and  their  joys,  must  talk  with  them,  eat  and  sleep  with 
them  and  know  their  hearts.  It  would  be  asking  too 
much  of  the  Southern  white  man  to  do  this. 

We  know  that  in  order  to  save  the  world  God  gave 
His  only  begotten  Son,  Jesus  Christ,  who  came  to 
earth  in  the  likeness  of  man,  to  save  man.  Perhaps 
He  might  have  sent  an  Archangel  or  an  Angel,  but  this 
work  of  redemption  could  only  be  done  by  His  sending 


IN  THE  BLACK  BELT  103 

a  person  who  was  a  man,  just  like  the  men  He  was  to 
save,  and  so  it  is  with  all  great  work  of  reformation 
and  evolution. 

In  order  to  help  the  people  we  must  become  like 
them.  In  Christ  becoming  like  man  is  what  we  call  the 
humiliation  of  the  Incarnation,  and  in  that  lies  the 
great  secret  of  redemption  and  reformation. 

Again,  I  feel  that  this  is  a  day  of  democracy,  and 
that  the  Negro  should  be  given  a  voice  in  the  govern- 
ment of  his  schools.  If  this  democracy,  of  which  we 
are  hearing  so  much,  is  for  the  white  man  alone,  then 
I  think  that  the  Negro  should  know  it,  and  if  it  is  for 
all  people  he  should  know  that. 

The  white  man  owes  it  to  the  Negro  to  make  this 
matter  plain. 


104  TWENTY-FIVE  YEARS 


CHAPTER  17. 
Where  Lies  the  Negro's  Opportunity? 

The  liberation  and  enfranchisement  of  four  million 
of  slaves  in  this  country  fifty  years  ago  brought  into 
the  body  politic  a  situation  that  has  ever  since  been  a 
bone  of  contention.  Because  of  their  ignorance,  most 
of  these  people  were  without  the  slightest  idea  of  the 
proper  use,  or  the  power,  of  the  ballot,  and  but  few 
could  properly  exercise  this  new  and  high  prerogative. 

As  long  as  the  federal  troops  remained  in  the  South 
and  supervised  and  controlled  the  elections,  these  new- 
ly-made citizens  retained  their  rights,  but  when,  dur- 
ing President  Hayes'  administration,  the  troops  were 
withdrawn,  the  South  immediately  set  to  work  to  rem- 
edy this  condition.  Starting  with  Mississippi  in  1890, 
state  after  state  disfranchised  the  Negro.  Other  dis- 
criminating laws  have  been  enacted  setting  apart ' '  Jim 
Crow''  apartments  for  the  Negro  on  all  public  car- 
riers, establishing  "Jim  Crow"  schools,  and,  in  fact, 
segregating  the  two  races  in  all  public  places  wherever 
it  is  possible. 

This  action  on  the  part  of  the  South  brought  forth 
a  storm  of  criticism  from  the  North.  The  North  ac- 
cused the  South  of  treating  the  Negro  unjustly  and 
taking  from  him  his  constitutional  rights.  The  South 
answered  the  North,  not  by  claiming  its  policy  towards 


IN  THE  BLACK  BELT  105 

the  Negro  to  be  right,  but  by  accusing  the  North  of 
hypocrisy;  but  both  sections  agree  that  the  Negro 
should  be  made  as  useful  as  his  capacities  will  permit, 
and  that  he  should  seek  the  place  where  this  use- 
fulness can  be  best  secured. 

This  long  and  constant  agitation  has  led  thoughtful 
students  of  the  race  problem  to  ask  the  question : 

Are  the  conditions  in  the  South  more  conducive  to 
the  social  efficiency  of  the  Negro  than  those  offered  to 
him  in  the  North!  This  is  a  vital  question  and  a  just 
answer  to  it  will  have  a  far-reaching  and  lasting  effect 
upon  the  future  welfare  of  the  Negro  race  in  this 
country.  By  social  efficiency  we  mean  that  degree  of 
development  of  the  individual  that  will  enable  him  to 
render  the  most  effective  service  to  himself,  his  fam- 
ily and  to  society.  As  has  been  denned,  all  will  agree 
that  social  efficiency  is  the  chief  end  of  life. 

In  the  North  the  Negro  lives  mostly  in  the  large 
cities,  while  in  the  South  he  lives  mostly  in  the  rural 
or  country  districts.  Both  the  North  and  the  South 
will  admit  this  fact;  the  opportunities  offered  in  the 
North  then  must  be  largely  the  opportunities  such  as 
large  cities  can  offer,  those  in  the  South  must  be 
largely  such  as  country  districts  can  offer. 

But  before  further  considering  this  question  let  us 
note  for  a  moment  the  opportunities  offered  in  the 
South  and  those  offered  in  the  North.  It  is  true  that, 
in  the  South,  the  Negro  is  disfranchised.  It  is  also 
true  that  he  suffers  many  other  injustices  in  that  sec- 
tion, but  on  the  other  hand  he  has  a  wide  field  of  labor. 

First  of  all  he  has  almost  an  unlimited  opportunity 
to  farm.     He  is  better  adapted  to  farm  work  in  that 


106  TWENTY-FIVE  YEARS 

section  than  either  the  native  white  man  or  the 
foreigner.  He  stands  the  heat  better  and  can  do  more 
work  under  a  burning  Southern  sun. 

In  railroad  construction  the  Negro  is  preferred. 
The  coal  of  the  South  is  dug  by  Negro  labor,  the  iron 
ore  is  picked  from  the  bowels  of  the  earth  by  his 
brawny  muscles.  The  Negro  finds  work  at  the  foun- 
dries, the  great  pipe  furnaces,  the  rolling  mills,  car 
factories  and  other  industries  in  the  mineral  districts. 
He  is  eagerly  sought  for  the  sawmills,  the  turpentine 
orchard,  and  in  fact  for  almost  every  industry  of  the 
South. 

Though  the  white  man  in  the  South  is  beginning  to 
enter  the  field  of  industry,  he  has  not  entered  to  the 
extent  that  the  Negro's  place  is,  in  the  least,  in  jeop- 
ardy. Such  are  the  opportunities  offered  the  Negro  in 
the  South,  though  he  is  largely  deprived  of  political 
and  social  rights.  These  facts  are  admitted  by  both 
the  North  and  the  South. 

Now  what  are  the  opportunities  offered  him  in  the 
North?  First  of  all,  the  Negro  is  a  free  man  in  a 
political  sense.  He  has  the  same  right  to  vote  that 
other  citizens  have  and,  too,  he  can  vote  according  to 
the  dictates  of  his  own  conscience. 

President  Koosevelt  in  his  speech  at  Tuskegee  in 
1905,  said  that  the  colored  people  had  opportunities 
for  economic  development  in  the  South  that  are  not 
offered  to  them  elsewhere. 

In  the  large  cities  of  the  North,  where  the  Negro 
mostly  lives,  the  chances  for  good  health  and  the  pur- 
chase of  a  home  are  not  so  good.  The  man  with  little 
means,  such  as  the  Negro  usually  is,  must  live  in  either 


IN  THE  BLACK  BELT  107 

filthy  streets  or  back  alleys,  where  the  air  is  foul  and 
the  environments  are  permeated  with  disease  germs. 
For  the  lack  of  fresh  air,  pure  food  and  proper  exer- 
cise, his  children  are  mere  weaklings  instead  of  strong 
and  robust  boys  and  girls. 

Dr.  Robert  B.  Bean  of  Ann  Arbor,  in  his  essay  on 
"The  Training  of  the  Negro"  in  Century  Magazine 
of  October,  1906,  said  that  in  the  large  cities  the  Negro 
is  being  forced  by  competition  into  the  most  degraded 
and  least  remunerative  occupations;  that  such  occu- 
pations make  them  helpless  to  combat  the  blight  of 
squalor  and  disease  which  are  inevitable  in  these 
cities,  and  therefore  many  of  them  are  being  destroyed 
by  them. 

Mr.  Baker  says: 

"One  of  the  questions  I  asked  of  Negroes  whom  I 
met  both  North  and  South  was  this : 

"  'What  is  your  chief  cause  of  complaint?' 

"In  the  South  the  first  answer  nearly  always  re- 
ferred to  the  Jim  Crow  cars  or  the  Jim  Crow  railroad 
stations ;  after  that,  the  complaint  was  of  political  dis- 
franchisement, the  difficulty  of  getting  justice  in  the 
courts,  the  lack  of  good  school  facilities,  and  in  some 
localities,  of  the  danger  of  actual  physical  violence. 

"But  in  the  North  the  first  answer  invariably  re- 
ferred to  working  conditions. 

"  'The  Negro  isn't  given  a  fair  opportunity  to  get 
employment.  He  is  discriminated  against  because  he 
is  colored. '  " 

These  conditions  instead  of  promoting  the  social 
efficiency  of  the  Negro,  tend  to  degrade  and  demoralize 
him.     The    argument    that    the    deprivation    of    the 


108  TWENTY-FIVE  YEARS 

Negro's  political  and  social  rights  in  the  South  tends 
to  crush  his  ambition,  warp  his  aspirations  and  distort 
his  judgment,  is  unsound,  because  his  self-reliance, 
ambition  and  independence  in  the  South  can  be  traced 
partly  to  this  very  deprivation.  By  it  he  has  been 
forced  to  establish  his  own  schools,  his  own  churches, 
educate  his  own  children  and  train  his  own  ministers. 
All  of  these  make  for  self-reliance  and  independence 
and  are  therefore  conducive  to  his  social  efficiencv. 


IN  THE  BLACK  BELT  109 


CHAPTER  18. 

School  Problems  of  a  Tuskegee  Graduate. 

"Two  distinct  problems  face  the  Tuskegee  gradu- 
ate who  goes  forth  as  a  leader  of  his  people :  the  prob- 
lem of  extending  education  to  the  masses  of  our  peo- 
ple and  the  problem  of  so  adjusting  the  people  to  their 
actual  conditions  that  the  two  races  will  be  able  to  live 
and  work  together  in  harmony  and  helpfulness. 

It  may  as  well  be  admitted  at  the  outset  that  the 
public  schools  in  the  rural  districts  of  the  lower  South 
are  not  working  toward  this  end.  The  condition  of 
the  public  schools  for  our  people  in  the  Black  Belt 
section  of  this  state  is  disheartening.  As  unreason- 
able as  it  may  seem,  it  is  a  fact  that  as  the  Negro  pop- 
ulation increases,  in  this  section,  the  appropriation  for 
Negro  schools  decreases.  In  many  places  the  schools 
have  been  abolished  altogether. 

From  almost  every  nook  and  corner  of  the  South 
there  comes  a  cry  that  the  Negro  as  a  laborer  is  unsat- 
isfactory. It  is  said  that  he  is  inefficient,  unreliable, 
indolent,  lazy,  in  short,  that  he  is  unfit  to  do  the  work 
the  South  wants  done.  Less  than  two  decades  ago  it 
was  just  the  opposite.  Then,  it  was  said  that  the  Ne- 
gro was  unfit  for  everything  else  except  work.  How 
inconsistent !  We  admit  that  there  is  a  labor  problem 
in  the  South,  but  we  deny  that  it  is  due  wholly  to  the 


110  TWENTY-FIVE  YEARS 

inefficiency  of  the  Negro  as  a  laborer.  In  the  first 
place,  the  natural  increase  of  the  population  of  the 
South  has  not  kept  pace  with  the  marvelous  growth 
and  development  of  her  industries.  This  in  itself 
would  explain  a  scarcity  of  labor.  Furthermore,  it 
should  be  remembered  that  the  most  industrious,  the 
most  frugal,  and  the  most  thrifty  Negroes  of  the 
South  are  rapidly  changing  from  the  wage  hands,  to 
contract  hands,  and  the  day  laborers,  to  the  renters  of 
their  own  farms,  while  thousands  of  Negroes  in  dif- 
ferent parts  of  the  South  are  establishing  independent 
business  enterprises  for  themselves.  The  South  can- 
not hire  that  class  of  Negroes  from  their  work.  This, 
again  has  a  tendency  to  make  labor  scarce.  Added  to 
this  is  the  fact  that  thousands  of  Negroes  are  moving 
into  the  cities.  Some  are  going  into  other  states  seek- 
ing on  the  one  hand  better  educational  opportunities 
for  their  children,  and  on  the  other  hand,  protection 
from  mobs  and  lynchers.  This  again  has  a  depressing 
effect  upon  labor. 

While  these  underlying  causes  seem  sufficient  to  ac- 
count for  the  present  labor  troubles  of  the  South,  we 
must  admit  that  there  are  entirely  too  many  Negroes, 
particularly  among  those  who  work  as  wage-hands, 
contract-hands,  and  day  laborers,  who  are  ignorant 
and  superstitious,  too  many  who  are  gamblers  and 
drunkards.  Naturally,  their  work  is  not  satisfactory. 
But  they  are  not  wholly  to  blame  since  they  have  had 
neither  adequate  educational  opportunities,  nor  the 
proper  home  training.  If  they  lack  character,  it  is 
largely  because  they  lack  training.  This  is,  as  I  un- 
derstand it,  what  the  President  means  when  he  says 


IN  THE  BLACK  BELT  111 

that  "ignorance  is  the  most  costly  crop  that  any  com- 
munity can  produce.' ' 

Graduates  from  Tuskegee,  a  few  years  ago,  re- 
ceived from  our  illustrious  Principal  the  injunction, 
"Go  ye  into  all  parts  of  the  South  and  change  these 
conditions." 

I  will  now  try  to  give  an  account  of  my  steward- 
ship. I  hail  from  Snow  Hill,  which  is  located  in  the 
heart  of  the  Black  Belt  of  this  State,  in  a  section 
where  the  colored  people  outnumber  the  white  seven 
to  one,  and  in  the  center  of  a  colored  population  of 
more  than  200,000.  When  we  started  work  there 
twenty-five  years  ago  the  people  as  a  whole  were  poor, 
ignorant,  superstitious  and  greatly  in  debt.  They  had 
no  special  love  for  industrial  training  and  not  much 
general  love  for  any  kind  of  education.  The  so-called 
public  schools  were  then  running  three  months  in  the 
year  and  paying  the  teachers  nine  and  ten  dollars  per 
month.  We  started  work  in  a  dilapidated  one-room 
log  cabin  with  three  students  and  fifty  cents  in  money. 
There  was  no  state  appropriation,  neither  was  any 
church  or  society  responsible  for  one  dollar  of  its  ex- 
penses. 

Today  we  have  an  institution  of  more  than  four 
hundred  students  and  twenty- two  teachers  and  officers. 
We  have  1940  acres  of  land,  twenty-four  buildings, 
counting  large  and  small,  and  fourteen  industries  in 
constant  operation.  Being  in  a  farming  section,  how- 
ever, we  are  putting  more  stress  upon  agriculture. 

It  is  the  aim  of  our  institution  to  teach  the  beauty 
and  dignity  of  all  labor  and  inculcate  a  love  for  the 
soil  and  for  agricultural  life.    In  spite  of  the  denial  of 


112  TWENTY-FIVE  YEARS 

political  rights  and  of  the  poor  educational  opportuni- 
ties, and  many  other  unjust  discriminations,  the 
South,  just  now,  is  the  best  place  in  this  country  for 
the  Negro,  and  especially  the  agricultural  section. 
We  might  as  well  recognize  this  fact  and  teach  our 
people  to  act  accordingly. 

Again,  we  aim  to  train  leaders  for  the  masses  of 
our  people;  for  this  purpose  we  need  young  men  and 
young  women  imbued  with  the  spirit  of  sacrifice  and 
service  who  will  go  into  these  rural  sections  and  teach 
our  people  how  to  live,  how  not  to  die;  teach  them 
how  to  live  economically,  to  pay  their  debts,  to  buy 
land,  to  build  better  homes,  better  schools,  better 
churches,  and  above  all,  how  to  lead  pure  and  upright 
lives  and  become  useful  and  helpful  citizens  in  the 
community  in  which  they  live.  Finally,  we  aim  to  train 
a  high  class  of  domestic  servants.  There  need  be  no 
fear  or  uneasiness  for  we  have  an  abundance  of  ma- 
terial for  each  class.  But  the  worth  of  an  institution 
is  not  determined  by  the  acquisition  of  houses  and 
land,  neither  by  the  bare  statement  of  its  aims,  but  by 
its  actual  power  to  serve  the  practical,  daily  needs  of 
the  community  in  which  it  exists. 

As  a  result  of  our  twenty-five  years'  work  at  Snow 
Hill,  we  have  about  one  thousand  graduates  and  ex- 
students  who  have  either  finished  the  full  or  partial 
course  at  the  institution  and  are  now  out  in  the  world 
doing  creditable  work  as  teachers,  farmers,  mechan- 
ics, and  domestic  workers.  Over  fifty  per  cent  of  our 
students  have  bought  homes  since  leaving  school. 
Many  have  houses  with  five  and  six  rooms.  Wherever 
a  Snow  Hill  student  teaches  the  school  term  is  length- 


IN  THE  BLACK  BELT  113 

ened  and  the  people  are  encouraged  to  buy  land,  build 
better  homes,  better  school-houses  and  better  churches. 

The  people  have  not  only  been  helped  by  our  stu- 
dents and  graduates,  but  they  have  been  helped  di- 
rectly through  our  Negro  conference  and  Black  Belt 
Improvement  Society. 

Twenty-five  years  ago  the  people  in  the  neighbor- 
hood of  the  school  did  not  own  more  than  ten  acres  of 
land,  while  today  they  own  more  than  twenty  thousand 
acres.  Twenty-five  years  ago  the  one-room  log  cabin 
was  the  rule,  today  it  is  the  exception.  Twenty-five 
years  ago  the  majority  of  the  farmers  were  in  heavy 
debt  and  mortgaged  their  crops,  today  many  of  the 
farmers  now  have  bank  accounts,  while  a  few  years 
ago  they  did  not  know  what  a  bank  account  was. 
Throughout  the  community  they  are  building  better 
homes,  better  churches,  better  school-houses,  and  the 
relation  between  the  races  is  cordial. 

Just  a  word  about  our  Black  Belt  Improvement  So- 
ciety. This  organization  has  ten  degrees  of  member- 
ship and  any  one  of  good  moral  standing  desiring  to 
better  his  condition,  can  become  a  member  of  the  first 
degree.  A  member  of  the  second  degree,  however, 
must  own  a  little  property,  at  least  three  chickens,  and 
a  pig.  A  member  of  the  third  degree  must  own  a  cow,  of 
the  fourth  degree  he  must  own  an  acre  of  land,  a  mem- 
ber of  the  fifth  degree  must  have  erected  on  that  acre 
a  house  having  at  least  three  rooms,  a  member  of  the 
sixth  degree  must  own  twenty  acres  of  land,  of  the 
seventh  degree  must  own  forty  acres  of  land,  and  of 
the  eighth  degree  must  own  sixty  acres,  etc.,  until  they 
reach  the  tenth  degree. 


114  TWENTY-FIVE  YEARS 

Then  we  have  an  annual  fair  at  which  prizes  are 
given  to  those  who  have  excelled  in  any  of  the  agricul- 
tural products,  or  those  who  have  had  the  best  gar- 
dens, or  who  have  kept  the  best  house  during  the  year. 
a  special  prize  is  given  to  the  party  who  has  bought 
the  most  land  during  the  year. 

This  society  has  several  committees.  It  has  a  com- 
mittee on  education.  This  committee  holds  meetings 
in  the  various  communities  to  arouse  in  the  people  an 
interest  in  education.  It  encourages  them  to  build 
better  school-houses,  to  extend  the  school  term  and  it 
keeps  their  children  in  school.  It  is  the  duty  of  the 
committee  on  labor  to  gather  together  those  of  our 
race  who  still  work  as  contract-hands,  wage-hands, 
day-laborers,  and  domestic  servants,  and  impress  upon 
them  the  necessity  of  rendering  the  best  service,  tell 
them  that  the  race  is  judged  more  by  what  they  do 
than  what  we  do,  and  how  great  their  responsibility  is. 

The  farming  committee  is  always  active,  trying  to 
create  in  the  people  a  real  love  for  agricultural  life, 
trying  to  show  them  that  the  opportunities  which  the 
country  offers  us  are  superior  to  those  offered  in  the 
cities.  Other  committees  are  the  committee  on  good 
government,  committee  on  business,  and  committee  on 
good  roads.  The  influence  for  good  this  society  is  ex- 
erting throughout  the  section  can  hardly  be  esti- 
mated. Such  is  the  nature  of  the  work  we  are  doing 
at  Snow  Hill." 


IN  THE  BLACK  BELT  115 


CHAPTER  19. 

Benefits  Wrought  by  Hardships. 

The  word  "Offence"  is  a  general  and  somewhat  in- 
definite term.  As  defined  by  the  various  dictionaries, 
it  means  an  attack,  an  assanlt,  aggression,  injustice, 
oppression,  transgression  of  a  law,  misdemeanor,  tres- 
pass, crime  and  persecution.  In  all  of  these  definitions 
there  is  implied  an  act  considered  as  disagreeable  if 
not  harmful  to  the  recipient. 

Of  the  various  nations  of  the  earth,  those  that  are 
most  powerful  and  that  have  accomplished  most  good 
are  those  which  have  endured  and  have  survived  the 
most  offences.  They  have  grown  by  reason  of  the  ob- 
stacles which  they  have  overcome.  It  is  singular,  yet 
it  is  true,  that  offences  have  never  destroyed  a  nation. 
Those  nations  which  have  been  destroyed  have  been 
destroyed  not  by  attack  from  without,  but  by  their 
own  internal  weakness. 

Societies  that  are  accomplishing  the  most  good  for 
the  uplift  of  humanity  today  are  those  against  whom 
the  most  offences  have  been  committed.  Take  the 
Christian  Church,  the  greatest  of  all  societies.  Who 
can  enumerate  the  offences  which  have  been  committed 
against  the  church  ?  Herod  tried  to  behead  it,  but  could 
not ;  Pilate  tried  to  crucify  it,  but  instead  sanctified  it ; 
Paul  persecuted  it  and  it  redeemed  him ;  poor  drunken 


116  TWENTY-FIVE  YEARS 

and  debauched  Nero  poured  forth  the  fury  of  his  wrath 
against  it  in  every  conceivable,  wicked  way.  He  delib- 
erately set  fire  to  the  city  of  Rome  and  accused  the 
Christians  of  the  deed.  He  gave  feasts  in  his  garden 
and  the  bodies  of  the  Christians  were  burned  as  torch- 
es in  the  evenings.  Their  groans  and  agonies  con- 
stituted the  music  for  their  dance  and  carousal.  Other 
Christians  were  fed  to  half -starved  lions.  But  through 
it  all  the  church  has  become  more  powerful  and  more 
glorious  than  before;  while  Nero's  name  will  forever 
be  a  stench  to  the  nations  of  the  earth.  In  this  parti- 
cular case  the  prophecy  of  Christ ' '  That  offences  must 
need  be  but  woe  unto  the  man  by  whom  the  offence 
cometh"  is  fulfilled.  As  with  the  church,  so  with  all 
other  societies  and  institutions  that  are  doing  good 
in  the  community,  they  endure  their  offences. 

The  history  of  the  growth  and  rise  of  the  various 
races  will  show  that  they,  too,  have  had  their  bitter 
as  well  as  their  sweet.  In  fact,  they  have  fought  for 
every  inch  of  territory  which  they  now  possess. 

Let  us  consider  some  of  the  benefits  which  have  been 
derived  from  our  hardships.  That  the  enslavement  of 
my  people  was  a  serious  offence  there  is  no  doubt,  I 
should  be  the  last  one  to  apologize  for  slavery;  but, 
after  all,  we  brought  more  out  of  slavery  than  we  car- 
ried into  it.  We  went  into  it  heathens,  with  no  lan- 
guage, and  no  God;  we  came  out  American  citizens, 
speaking  the  proud  Anglo-Saxon  tongue,  and  serving 
the  God  of  all  the  earth. 

Under  the  leadership  of  old  Richard  Allen  and  other 
noted  colored  divines,  the  Negro  church  was  set  up 
under  a  bush  harbor,  but  today  they  own  church  prop- 


IN  THE  BLACK  BELT  117 

erty  in  this  country  valued  at  more  than  $26,000,000. 
As  a  result  of  the  educational  offences  committed 
against  the  Negro,  today  he  has  35,000  Negro  teach- 
ers and  more  than  seventeen  million  dollars'  worth 
of  school  property  in  this  country.  The  Negro  has 
been  disfranchised,  but  he  is  more  capable  of  the  ballot 
today  than  ever  before.  Though  the  disfranchisement 
of  the  Negro  has  wrought  great  harm  to  our  Democrat- 
ic form  of  government,  it  has  increased  in  the  Negro 
the  spirit  of  patience,  self-reliance,  self-sacrifice,  and, 
in  fact,  it  has  enhanced  in  him  all  of  those  virtues 
which  make  for  true  manhood  and  womanhood. 

In  the  business  world  there  has  been  less  offence 
committed  against  the  Negro  than  in  any  other  way. 
What  little  there  has  been  was  rather  slight  and  it  has 
been  only  in  recent  years  that  the  Negro  has  begun  to 
detect  it,  and  establish  business  of  his  own.  He  has 
not  so  many  stores  as  he  has  schools,  nor  so  many 
shops  as  he  has  churches,  yet  the  reports  of  the  Negro 
National  Business  League,  which  recently  met  in  At- 
lanta, will  show  that  he  is  making  rapid  progress  in 
the  business  world. 

All  great  men  as  well  as  races  and  nations  suffered 
their  offences.  Washington,  Lincoln  and  Grant  were 
great  because  they  had  to  endure  hardships.  Robert 
Small,  Frederick  Douglas  and  Booker  Washington  are 
great  because  they  were  slaves. 

The  Negro  of  the  South  was  emancipated  50  years 
ago  without  education,  without  money,  without  clothes, 
without  food,  without  even  a  place  to  rest  his  head, 
and,  in  many  instances,  without  a  name.  His  greatest 
possession  was  ignorance.    If,  during  slavery,  he  was 


118  TWENTY-FIVE  YEARS 

taught  many  useful  and  helpful  lessons,  during  slav- 
ery, also,  he  was  denied  the  opportunity  of  exercising 
and  developing  the  greatest  requisite  of  independence, 
gelf-reliance.  He  was  a  new-born  babe,  as  a  ship 
in  mid-ocean  without  a  rudder.  It  was  nothing  more 
than  natural  for  him  at  times  to  drift,  at  times  to  wan- 
der, and  still  at  other  times  to  steer  in  the  wrong  direc- 
tion. 

Consequently,  he  made  many  mistakes,  some  of  them 
serious.  He  made  mistakes  in  religion,  mistakes  in 
economics,  and  mistakes  in  politics,  but  to  my  mind 
his  greatest  mistake  was  made  in  the  matter  of  edu- 
cation. Until  the  year  '95  the  masses  of  our  people 
in  the  Black-Belt  section  of  the  South  believed  that  the 
end  of  education  was  to  free  one  from  manual  labor, 
especially  from  the  labor  of  the  farm.  They  further- 
more believed  that  it  was  the  end  of  education  to  take 
the  people  from  the  country  to  the  cities  and  otherwise 
fit  them  for  only  three  callings,  namely,  of  teacher,  of 
preacher,  and  of  politician.  This  conception  of  edu- 
cation was  entertained  not  only  by  the  masses,  but 
many  of  our  schools  and  colleges  encouraged  the  same 
view. 

Just  at  this  period,  when  the  relation  between  the 
races  seemed  most  strained,  there  loomed  on  the  hori- 
zon the  Booker  "Washington  idea,  "That  the  kind  of 
education  most  needed  by  our  people  was  that  which 
would  dignify,  beautify,  and  make  attractive  and  desir- 
able country  life  and  at  the  same  time  fit  our  people 
for  high  and  useful  citizenship."  Mr.  Washington 
further  contended  that  any  education  which  did  not 
manifest  itself  in  the  practical  daily  life  of  the  people 
was  not  worthy  of  the  name. 


IN  THE  BLACK  BELT  119 

This  idea  of  Mr.  Washington  was  indeed  timely, 
but,  like  all  other  great  movements  for  reform,  it  was 
not  accomplished  without  obstacles,  but  in  the  face 
of  many  dangers  and  difficulties.  But  the  dawn  of  a 
new  day  is  breaking  and  industrialism  seems  to  be  the 
spirit  of  the  age.  The  very  fact  that  the  Negro  was 
not  allowed  to  attend  the  white  man's  school  in  the 
South  gave  the  Negro  a  Tuskegee.  The  fact  that  no 
white  educator  was  willing  to  bear  the  black  man's 
burden  gave  him  a  Booker  Washington.  For  similar 
reasons  the  Negro  has  been  forced  to  build  his  own  li- 
braries, his  own  theatres,  his  own  hotels,  and  to  estab- 
lish many  other  business  enterprises. 

Hardships,  trials,  persecution,  and  offences  are  a 
primary  necessity  in  life.  We  ought  not,  therefore, 
complain  of  them;  our  trials  have  made  us  what  we 
are. 

This  is  pre-eminently  a  progressive  age.  The  world 
no  longer  stands  still.  We  are  either  going  forward 
or  backward,  rising  or  falling;  there  is  no  such  thing 
as  standing  still.  Those  phases  of  our  human  activi- 
ties that  are  standing  still  are  dying.  This  forward 
movement  is  not  accomplished  without  obstacles,  and 
what  is  true  of  politics  and  business  is  equally  true  of 
individuals.  The  greatest  strength  comes  from  over- 
coming— from  resistance  and  struggle. 


120  TWENTY-FIVE  YEARS 


CHAPTER  20. 

The  Negro  and  the  World  War. 

No  book  written  in  the  year  1918  would  be  complete 
without  a  word  about  this  awful  conflagration  which  is 
now  sweeping  over  the  earth. 

One  sometimes  thinks  that  the  end  is  near  and  that 
the  world  is  being  destroyed. 

We  know  that  everything  that  has  been  invented  to 
advance  civilization  is  now  being  used  to  destroy  it, 
Our  one  consolation  is  that  however  imperfect  we  may 
have  been  as  a  nation,  we  know  that  our  cause  is  just 
and  because  of  this  we  believe  that  in  the  end  we  will 
and  must  win.  The  right  has  always  been  more  pow- 
erful than  the  wrong,  even  more  powerful  than  might 
and  it  will  prove  true  in  this  case. 

I  am  being  constantly  asked  by  white  men  in  both 
the  North  and  South,  "How  does  the  Negro  regard 
this  war  and  what  about  his  willingness  to  share  in 
its  responsibilities. ' '  I  have  only  one  answer  for  such 
questions :  "The  Negro  now  knows  but  one  word  ' Loy- 
alty/ He  is  no  alien,  he  owes  no  allegiance  to  any 
other  country,  there  is  no  hyphen  to  his  name,  he  is 
all  American,  he  is  willing  to  fight  and  die,  that  the 
world  might  be  made  safe  for  democracy/ '  He  only 
asks  that  he  may  share  in  this  democracy. 

Already  there  are  practically  200,000  Negroes  who 


IN  THE  BLACK  BELT  121 

have  been  called  to  the  colors  and  thousands  of  others 
are  expected  to  be  called.  I  hear  of  but  few  if  any 
slackers  among  them,  while  thousands  of  slackers  of 
other  races  are  being  rounded  up  by  the  police  in  va- 
rious cities  throughout  the  country. 

The  200,000  Negro  soldiers  who  are  now  at  the  front 
and  in  the  camps  have  gone  with  as  brave  hearts  as 
any  American  citizen.  They  say,  ''Silver  and  gold, 
have  I  but  little,  but  I  give  my  life  to  Uncle  Sam,  it  is 
all  that  I  can  do. ' ' 

The  Negro  is  not  only  furnishing  men  to  the  Na- 
tional Army,  but  he  is  doing  his  part  to  support  the 
boys  at  the  front.  He  has  bought  Liberty  Bonds  to 
the  fullest  extent.  Many  of  his  business  organiza- 
tions, societies  and  lodges  have  bought  large  blocks  of 
these  bonds. 

On  Sunday  morning,  June  14th,  Dr.  Cortland  L. 
Myers  of  Tremont  Temple,  Boston,  in  his  sermon  told 
of  an  incident  of  an  old  colored  woman  who  had  worked 
hard  and  saved  up  three  hundred  dollars  in  order  that 
she  might  not  at  the  end  be  buried  in  the  paupers' 
field,  but  when  she  read  that  the  United  States  wanted 
money,  took  all  she  had  and  carried  it  to  the  bank  to 
the  agent.  When  the  agent  gave  her  the  Liberty  Bond 
and  told  her  that  she  would  get  four  per  cent  on  her 
money,  she  was  utterly  surprised  and  said,  "Lord, 
Boss,  I  thought  I  was  giving  this  money  to  Uncle 
Sam."  This  woman  had  only  three  hundred  dollars, 
but  she  gave  all. 

You  remember  what  Christ  said  about  those  who 
were  contributing  to  a  great  cause  on  one  occasion. 
Many  made  large  gifts,  but  one  poor  woman  came  up 


122  TWENTY-FIVE  YEARS 

and  gave  a  penny  which  was  all  she  had.  Christ  on 
commenting  on  this  to  his  Disciples  said  that  she  had 
given  more  than  all,  because  she  had  given  all  she  had. 
Many  incidents  of  this  kind  may  be  cited  as  proof  of 
the  Negroes'  loyalty  in  this  struggle. 

Not  only  in  the  Liberty  Loan  drive,  but  in  the  Bed 
Cross  and  War  Savings  Stamp  drives,  the  Negro  is 
doing  his  part.  There  are  Negro  agents  all  over  the 
South  who  are  educating  our  people  up  to  what  the 
Government  at  Washington  wants.  Such  schools  as 
Snow  Hill,  Laurinburg,  Denmark,  Utica,  Okalona  and 
Calhoun  and  many  others  are  serving  as  bureaus  of 
information  for  this  war  work  among  the  Negroes. 

Nor  is  this  all.  The  Negro  is  doing  his  part  in  the 
various  industries  of  the  country.  I  have  heard  of 
many  strikes  and  walk-outs  since  we  entered  the  war, 
but  not  once  have  a  group  of  Negroes  struck.  In  some 
places  where  a  few  are  working  with  the  unions,  the 
unions  have  forced  them  out  at  the  risk  of  their  lives, 
but  where  he  is  free,  nowhere  in  this  country  has  the 
Negro  struck  during  the  war. 

He  is  doing  his  bit  on  the  farm.  Everywhere  the 
Negro  farmers,  man,  woman  and  child,  believe  that 
they  can  help  win  the  war  by  making  a  good  crop  and 
they  are  at  work  on  the  farm  trying  to  do  this,  so  you 
see  that  the  Negro  in  every  way  is  in  the  war  to  a  fin- 
ish. 

These  are  answers  to  questions  asked  me  by  the 
white  man  both  North  and  South  as  to  the  attitude  of 
the  Negro  toward  this  world's  war. 

But  on  the  other  hand  the  Negro  soldiers  and  civil- 
ians are  not  asleep  and  they  too  are  asking  such  ques- 
tions as  these : — 


IN  THE  BLACK  BELT  123 

"Are  we  to  share  in  the  democracy  for  which  we  are 
giving  our  lives  I 

When  the  world  is  made  safe  for  democracy,  will  the 
entire  country  be  made  safe  for  it? 

Will  my  father,  mother,  sister  and  brother  be  allowed 
to  share  in  this  democracy? 

Will  lynchings  and  burnings  at  the  stake  cease? 

Will  the  white  man  who  makes  the  laws  allow  these 
laws  to  take  their  course? 

Will  they  allow  us  or  give  us  a  fair  trial  before  their 
courts,  which  have  only  white  men  as  jurors? 

Will  they  cease  taxing  us  without  representation? 

Will  they  give  us  an  equal  part  of  the  money  spent  for 
education?  (In  many  places  in  the  Black  Belt  the 
Negro  child  receives  thirty  cents  a  year  for  edu- 
cation, while  the  white  child  receives  fifteen  dol- 
lars.) Will  the  Negro  be  given  any  work  that  he 
is  capable  of  doing  and  not  be  denied  it  on  account 
of  his  color? 

Will  it  be  possible  for  a  Negro  travelling  from  Ala- 
bama to  California  or  Massachusetts,  to  find  a 
place  to  sleep  at  night? 

Will  the  baggage  masters  and  the  conductors  of  the 
South  ever  treat  the  Negro  passengers  with  cour- 
tesy and  respect  and  finally  will  the  white  man  in 
the  South  after  making  the  laws  for  the  qualifica- 
tions of  voters,  allow  a  Negro  to  vote  if  he  meas- 
ures up  to  these  qualifications? 

The  Negro  does  not  care  what  these  qualifications 
may  be.  He  only  wants  a  fair  chance  in  case  he  meas- 
ures up  to  them. 


124  TWENTY-FIVE  YEARS 

The  Negro  only  seeks  equal  rights  and  justice  before 
all  the  courts  of  the  land.  He  expects  this  because  of 
his  teachings.  He  was  brought  to  this  country  against 
his  will,  even  against  his  protest.  He  has  been  given 
the  white  man's  language,  his  history,  his  literature, 
his  Bible  and  even  his  God.  His  aspirations,  inspira- 
tions and  desires  have  been  brought  about  as  a  result 
of  these  and  if  they  are  wrong,  the  white  man  is  to 
blame.  The  Negro  has  been  taught  to  believe  that  God 
is  no  respecter  of  persons  and  therefore  his  subjects 
should  not  be.  He  thought  that  if  he  did  what  other 
men  did  he  would  obtain  the  same  results. 

Now  evidently  the  Negro  is  a  man.  He  loves  as 
other  men  do,  he  lives  as  others  do,  he  dies  as  others 
die,  he  has  joy  and  sorrow  as  others  do,  even  hates  as 
others  do,  laughs  and  cries  as  others.  He  must  there- 
fore, be  a  man  as  man  is  the  only  being  which  pos- 
sesses these  faculties.  Then  he  asks  for  a  man's 
chance  and  the  world  will  never  be  right  until  this  is 
given  him.  The  world  will  never  be  safe  for  democ- 
racy until  all  the  races  of  the  earth  are  allowed  to 
share  in  it. 

In  answer  to  all  of  the  f  oreging  questions  asked  me 
by  both  the  white  and  black,  I  have  said  that  things 
will  be  better  for  the  Negro  after  the  war.  I  have  said 
that  it  was  impossible  for  the  world  to  be  made  safe 
for  democracy  unless  every  county  in  the  South  is 
made  safe  for  it. 

I  have  gone  as  far  as  to  cite  a  recent  occurrence  in 
Camden,  Wilcox  County,  Alabama,  where  more  than 
one  hundred  and  forty  Negroes  were  sent  to  the  can- 
tonments and  I  was  asked  to  be  one  of  the  speakers  on 


IN  THE  BLACK  BELT  125 

the  occasion.  The  white  people  there  gave  the  Ne- 
groes a  great  banquet  and  in  my  remarks  after  thank- 
ing them  for  their  hospitality,  I  said  "That  it  would 
be  foolish  and  cowardly  on  my  part  to  stand  here  in 
your  presence  and  say  that  as  a  race  we  have  no  griev- 
ances, for  we  have  them,  but  this  is  no  time  to  air 
them.  When  the  house  is  on  fire  it  is  no  time  for  fam- 
ily quarrels,  but  the  thing  to  do  is  to  put  the  fire  out 
and  then  we  can  adjust  the  quarrels  after. 

"Today  our  National  house  is  on  fire  and  it  is  the 
duty  of  every  man,  both  white  and  black,  rich  and  poor, 
great  and  small,  to  rise  in  his  might  and  put  the  fire 
out  and  when  the  fire  is  out,  we  will  see  you  about  these 
grievances. ' ' 

I  went  a  step  further  and  told  that  "already  the 
war  had  brought  some  good  results  as  this  was  the 
most  democratic  day  that  this  little  city  had  ever  seen. 
Before  the  war,  two  expressions  were  commonly  used 
by  the  white  man  and  the  Negro.  The  Negro's  ex- 
pression was  this : — ' '  I  haven 't  any  country, ' '  and  the 
white  man's  expression  was: — "This  is  a  white  man's 
country."  Now  both  of  these  classes  are  saying, 
' '  This  is  our  country. ' '  I  further  said  that ' '  we  should 
win  this  war,  because  democracy  was  right  and  autoc- 
racy is  wrong,  and  if  we  lose,  and  God  forbid  that  we 
should,  the  fault  will  not  be  in  democracy,  but  it  will 
be  due  to  the  fact  that  we  are  not  practicing  what  we 
preach. ' ' 

At  the  close  of  my  remarks  many  of  the  white  citi- 
zens, including  the  judge,  the  sheriff,  lawyers  and 
other  prominent  men  came  forward  and  congratulated 
me  on  what  I  had  said  and  some  said  that  the  white 


126  TWENTY-FIVE  YEARS 

people  of  Camden  needed  more  of  sneh  plain  talk.  I 
took  these  signs  to  mean  that  better  things  were  com- 
ing for  the  Negro  of  the  South  after  the  war,  bnt  I 
mnst  admit  that  when  I  read  in  the  evening  papers  of 
June  27th  that  Senator  John  Sharp  Williams  of  Mis- 
sissippi had  practically  defeated  the  bill  for  women 
suffrage,  because  he  said  that  he  favored  the  vote  for 
white  women  only  and  that  the  bill  in  its  present  form 
would  not  be  allowed  in  his  state — I  must  confess  that 
this  action  almost  took  away  all  of  my  hopes  espe- 
cially after  there  was  no  one  to  rise  and  rebut  his  ar- 
gument. There  was  no  one  in  the  United  States  Sen- 
ate to  speak  for  democracy  for  all  the  people.  Now  I 
think  that  just  such  spirit  as  this  exhibited  by  that 
great  Senator  from  Mississippi  is  at  the  foundation 
of  this  world's  war  and  until  that  spirit  is  crushed, 
I  fear  that  this  war  will  continue.  For  of  a  truth, 
''God  is  no  respecter  of  persons." 

Now  I  have  given  my  answers  to  both  the  Negro  and 
the  white  man.    What  is  the  answer  of  the  white  man? 

Are  we  fighting  for  democracy  for  all  the  people, 
or  are  we  fighting  for  democracy  for  the  white  man 
only! 

This  question  has  never  been  answered  by  the  white 
man,  but  it  must  be  answered  after  this  great  war. 


APPENDIX 

Address  Delivered  by  Mr.  Edwards  on  the  Twentieth 
Anniversary  of  His  Graduation  from  Tuskegee. 

i '  Two  decades  ago,  twenty  members  constituting  the 
class  of  '93,  received  their  commission  from  the  illus- 
trious Principal  of  this  great  institution  on  yonder 
hill,  to  go  ye  into  all  parts  of  the  South  and  teach  and 
preach  Tuskegee's  gospel.  This  gospel  was  then  as 
it  is  now,  a  gospel  of  service.  Now  after  the  lapse  of 
twenty  years  we  have  assembled  here  to  review  the 
efforts  of  past  years.  Although  twenty  years  are  not 
long  enough  in  which  to  record  the  life's  work  of  a 
class,  it  is  sufficiently  long  to  indicate  the  direction  in 
which  this  work  is  tending. 

"Sowe  come  today,  not  so  much  to  tell  what  we  have 
accomplished  as  to  tell  what  we  are  doing  to  renew 
our  allegiance  to  our  Alma  Mater,  and  to  assure  its 
Principal  and  members  of  the  Faculty  that  our  motto, 
" Deeds  Not  Words,"  is  still  our  guiding  star.  Four 
of  our  number  have  passed  to  the  great  beyond.  We 
must  therefore  wait  a  later  and  greater  day  to  hear 
their  record  read  or  told.  Of  the  remaining  sixteen, 
we  have  lost  all  communication  with  two,  and  it  would 
be  mere  speculation  for  us  to  say  what  these  two  are 
doing.  We  can  only  hope,  and  do  most  fervently  pray, 
that  wherever  they  are  they  have  with  them  the  deep 


128  APPENDIX 

and  abiding  spirit  of  Tuskegee,  and  this  we  believe 
they  have.  This  leaves  then  only  fourteen  live,  vigor- 
ous and  active  members  with  which  we  are  concerned. 
All  of  these,  except  one,  have  been  engaged  more  or 
less  in  teaching.    They  are  located  as  follows: 

1 '  Two  in  Normal  School  at  Snow  Hill,  Alabama ;  one 
at  the  head  of  a  large  Industrial  School  at  Topeka, 
Kansas ;  three  in  Birmingham,  Alabama ;  one  teaching 
in  Miles  Memorial  College;  one  in  Government  Ser- 
vice ;  one  doing  settlement  work ;  two  are  in  Asheville, 
N.  C,  where  they  are  engaged  in  teaching  and  doing 
settlement  work  respectively;  another  teaching  in 
Dothan,  Alabama;  two  in  Montgomery,  one  of  these 
teaching  and  the  other  doing  settlement  work;  one  in 
Selma,  Alabama,  farming  and  doing  extension  work; 
one  at  the  head  of  a  prosperous  Industrial  School  at 
China,  Alabama,  and  one  teaching  in  Georgia.  All 
have  been  remarkably  successful  and  they  have 
touched  and  made  better  the  lives  of  more  than  five 
thousand  souls.  While  losing  their  lives  for  others, 
they  have  saved  their  own  somewhat,  materially. 

"Having  been  out  on  the  tempestuous  sea  of  life  for 
twenty  years  amidst  both  storms  and  calms,  it  may  not 
be  out  of  place  for  us  to  speak  a  word  of  warning  or 
make  a  few  suggestions  to  those  who  are  to  set  sail 
today,  and  to  those  who  hope  to  go  to  sea  at  a  later 
date.  This,  then,  is  our  message.  First  of  all,  it  is  nec- 
essary for  you  to  know  where  the  work  of  the  world  is 
to  be  done. 

"On  one  occasion  during  Christ's  sojourn  on  earth, 
He  took  a  few  of  His  disciples  with  Him  upon  the 
mountain  and  there  transfigured  Himself.    He  clothed 


APPENDIX  129 

Himself  in  heavenly  beauty  and  splendor ;  He  arrayed 
Himself  in  His  Godlike  power.  These  men  were  so 
overjoyed  at  this  manifestation  of  His  glory  and 
power,  that  old  Peter,  impulsive  as  he  was,  spoke  out 
and  said:  'Lord,  it  is  good  for  us  to  be  here,  if  it  be 
Thy  will,  let  us  build  here  three  tabernacles,  one  for 
Thee,  one  for  Moses,  and  one  for  Ellas.'  The  place 
was  so  glorious  that  they  wanted  to  abide  there.  But 
at  the  same  time  the  multitude  was  waiting  at  the  foot 
of  the  mountain,  hungering  and  desiring  to  be  fed; 
naked  and  desiring  to  be  clothed;  sick,  and  desiring 
to  be  healed.  The  work  of  Jesus  Christ  and  His  dis- 
ciples was  not  on  the  transfigured  mountain,  but  at  the 
foot  among  the  masses.  So  as  they  came  down  from 
the  mountain,  there  met  Him  a  man  whose  son  was 
a  lunatic,  desiring  that  the  Master  might  heal  him. 

"So  on  occasions  like  this  when  Dr.  Washington 
takes  us  upon  the  mountain  and  reveals  to  us  Tuske- 
gee  in  all  of  her  beauty  and  splendor,  we  are  likely, 
in  such  a  state  of  ecstasy,  to  cry  out  saying,  Principal 
Washington,  it  is  good  for  us  to  be  here,  and  let  us 
build  three  tabernacles;  one  for  thee,  one  for  Arm- 
strong, and  one  for  Douglas.  But  my  friends,  we  can- 
not abide  here.  We  must  go  down  to  the  foot  of  the 
mountain  among  the  masses.  We  must  go  out  into  the 
rural  districts  for  there  it  is  that  the  people  are  a  hun- 
gry and  thirsty  crowd,  and  there  it  is  that  the  harvest 
is  great,  but  the  laborers  are  few,  and  there  it  is  the 
work  of  the  world  must  be  done. 

"Another  suggestion  is,  that  as  you  go  out  to  work, 
you  will  find  that  for  the  most  part  Negro  society  is 
built  upon  a  false  basis.    Instead  of  being  built  upon 


130  APPENDIX 

the  sound  basis  of  merit  and  character,  it  is  built  upon 
display;  instead  of  being  built  upon  substance,  it  is 
built  upon  shadow. 

'  'We  need  young  men  and  women  who  have  confi- 
dence in  themselves ;  confidence  in  the  race,  and  abid- 
ing faith  in  God.  We  need  young  men  and  women  who 
are  more  interested  in  the  opportunity  to  make  a  dol- 
lar than  in  the  privilege  to  spend  one.  We  need  young 
men  and  women  who  are  imbued  with  the  spirit  of  sac- 
rifice and  service,  whose  mission  is,  'Not  to  be  minis- 
tered unto,  but  to  minister. '  We  need  young  men  and 
women  with  a  purpose. 

1  *  To  illustrate  what  we  mean  by  a  purpose,  we  take 
the  action  of  Grant  during  the  late  Civil  War.  When 
Winfield  Scott  and  McClellan  had  practically  failed 
with  the  army  of  the  Potomac  and  things  were  look- 
ing very  dark  for  the  Union  forces,  Lieutenant  U.  S. 
Grant  was  placed  in  command  of  all  the  Union  forces. 
From  the  date  of  his  command,  his  purpose  was:  'On 
to  Richmond.'  Day  after  day  his  command  was:  'On 
to  Richmond.'  WTien  they  had  rivers  to  ford  and 
mountains  to  climb,  his  command  was:  'On  to  Rich- 
mond. '  At  times  thousands  were  laid  low  by  the  rav- 
age of  disease,  but  his  command  was:  'On  to  Rich- 
mond/ When  the  cannon  of  his  enemy  roared  like 
thunder  and  bullets  like  lightning  struck  his  men  down 
by  the  tens  of  thousands,  his  command  was:  'On  to 
Richmond. '  He  received  letters  and  telegrams  by  the 
thousands  saying:  'My  God,  General,  are  you  going  to 
kill  all  of  our  husbands,  all  of  our  sons,  our  brothers  1 
Are  you  going  to  make  all  of  the  North  a  land  of  wid- 
ows and  orphans  ? '    His  reply  was :  '  On  to  Richmond. ' 


APPENDIX  131 

When  rivers  of  blood  were  before  him,  flames  of  fire 
swept  over  his  forces,  his  command  was :  '  On  to  Rich- 
mond. '  And  the  command  never  ceased  until  Lee  sur- 
rendered his  sword  to  Grant  at  Appomattox  Court 
House.  We  repeat,  that  for  the  work  that  lies  before 
us,  we  need  young  men  and  women  with  a  purpose. 

"A  third  warning  is,  that  we  must  not  mistake  the 
aim  and  end  of  education.  You  will  find  somewhere 
in  the  Bible  a  sentence  like  this:  'And  the  word  was 
made  flesh  and  it  dwelled  among  us.'  The  word  had 
been  spoken  by  Abraham;  Moses  thundered  it  from 
Mt.  Sinai's  rugged  brow;  Ezekiel  preached  it;  David 
sang  it ;  Solomon  proclaimed  it ;  Jeremiah  prophesied 
it;  Elijah  saw  it  in  the  whirlwind;  Moses  saw  it  in 
the  burning  bush,  and  Isaiah  saw  it  and  in  amazement 
cried:  'Who  is  this  that  cometh  from  Edom  with  dyed 
garments  from  Bazroh?  this  that  is  glorious  in  his  ap- 
parel, traveling  in  the  greatness  of  His  strength?' 
But  my  friends,  none  of  this  would  do.  Speaking  the 
word  would  not  atone;  hearing  it  would  not  redeem; 
and  seeing  it  would  not  save.  The  word  had  to  be 
made  flesh  and  blood  in  the  person  of  Jesus  Christ,  the 
Son  of  God,  and  then  come  down  on  earth  and  live,, 
move,  and  dwell  among  us. 

"As  with  the  word,  so  with  education.  You  have 
been  here  a  number  of  years  trying  to  obtain  it.  You 
have  heard  education  from  your  teachers;  you  have 
heard  it  in  the  class-rooms ;  you  have  heard  it  from  the 
platform ;  you  have  heard  it  in  the  Sunday-School ;  you 
have  gleaned  it  from  your  text-books;  you  have  sung 
it;  you  have  prayed  it;  you  have  spoken  it;  you  have 
walked  it;  you  have  assumed  it.     But  none  of  these 


132  APPENDIX 

will  suffice.  Education,  in  order  to  be  real,  must  be 
applied;  in  order  to  be  effective,  it  must  be  digested 
and  assimiliated.  It  must  become  a  part  of  your  flesh 
and  blood ;  it  must  transform  you  into  a  new  creature 
and  then  go  out  and  move,  live  and  dwell  among  us. 

"And  now  a  final  word  for  the  class  of  '93.  What 
of  its  loyalty  to  Tuskegee,  our  Alma  Mater?  It  is 
true  that  at  times  our  purposes  and  aims  have  been 
misunderstood  and  misconstructed ;  at  times  your  at- 
titude towards  us  has  been  misinterpreted,  but  not 
once  have  we  doubted  your  love.  We  hope  that  you 
have  never  mistrusted  ours. 

"It  is  true  that  at  times  we  are  troubled  on  every 
side,  yet  not  distressed;  we  are  perplexed,  but  not  in 
dispair;  persecuted,  but  not  forsaken;  cast  down,  but 
not  destroyed.  Through  all  of  this,  our  love  and  loy- 
alty to  dear  old  Tuskegee  has  never  wavered,  and  now 
as  a  token  of  this  love  and  loyalty,  I  hand  to  Dr.  Wash- 
ington as  a  Memorial  Scholarship  for  the  class  of  '93, 
a  check  for  one  thousand  dollars." 

I  think  that  this  act  pleased  Dr.  Washington  more 
than  anything  that  had  ever  been  done  by  the  class  of 
'93.  We  all  were  proud  of  this  because  we  wanted  Dr. 
Washington  to  see  that  we  had  not  forgotten  what  he 
had  done  for  us.  We  wanted  to  do  this  during  his 
lifetime,  and  this  we  succeeded  in  doing. 

An  address  before  the  Alabama  State  Teachers '  As- 
sociation, held  in  Montgomery,  Ala.,  the  subject  being : 

"School  Building  Under  Difficulties." 

"There  is  no  work  pertaining  to  the  welfare  of  our 
race   that  is   of  more   importance   than  that  of  the 


APPENDIX  133 

teacher,  and  no  class  of  people  has  a  harder  task  to 
perform  than  the  earnest  and  conscientious  Negro 
teacher  of  today. 

"The  problems  that  come  before  the  large  educa- 
tional associations  of  this  and  other  countries,  are 
problems  dealing  largely  with  the  child,  such  as  the 
treatment  of  backward  children,  treating  of  abnormal 
children,  care  of  the  blind,  of  the  deaf,  special  treat- 
ment for  incorrigibles,  the  feeble  minded,  and  many 
other  kinds  of  mental  and  physical  defectives. 

"Other  problems  that  demand  the  attention  of  such 
meetings,  are  problems  dealing  with  the  teacher,  his 
preparation  and  qualification  for  the  various  grades 
of  our  schools,  for  instance,  preparation  of  the  teacher 
for  the  elementary  school,  for  the  secondary  school, 
and  for  colleges  and  universities.  These  associations 
also  give  much  time  to  such  subjects  as  The  Relation  of 
Education  to  Eeal  Life;  The  Defects  of  our  Present 
School  System;  and  how  these  defects  may  be  reme- 
died. In  other  words,  how  can  the  school  better  fit 
the  student  to  take  his  place  in  the  social  and  economic 
life  of  today?  I  repeat,  these  are  the  problems  which 
largely  consume  the  time  of  these  educational  meet- 
ings. They  are  vital  and  far-reaching,  and  demand 
the  closest  attention  of  our  wisest  and  best  educators. 
They  are  not  racial;  not  sectional;  not  even  national, 
but  are  universal  in  their  scope  and  teachers  in  all 
parts  of  the  world  must  contend  with  them. 

"The  average  Negro  teacher  of  the  South  today  must 
assume  his  share  of  the  burden  of  these  problems  along 
with  other  teachers,  whether  he  wills  it  or  not.  In 
addition  to  this  he  has  to  deal  with  the  serious  prob- 


134  APPENDIX 

lem  of  his  bread  and  butter.  This  makes  the  burden 
of  the  Negro  teacher  of  a  two-fold  nature,  and  in  this 
respect  he  is  at  a  disadvantage  of  the  average  Ameri- 
can teacher.  He  has  not  as  yet  been  able  to  live  up  to 
the  Biblical  injunction,  'Take  no  thought  for  your 
life,  what  ye  shall  eat,  or  what  ye  shall  drink,  nor  yet 
for  your  body,  what  ye  shall  put  on.'  No  teacher 
can  do  his  best  so  long  as  there  is  doubt  and  uncer- 
tainty about  his  daily  bread. 

"The  Negro  student  who  finishes  at  one  of  our 
higher  institutions  of  learning  today,  and  goes  forth 
to  teach,  does  not  find  everything  to  his  liking.  He 
soon  learns  that  there  has  been  no  voice  before  him 
crying  in  the  wilderness  saying:  'Prepare  ye  the  way 
of  the  teacher,  make  straight  in  the  desert  a  highway 
for  our  educator.'  He  learns  here  for  the  first  time 
that  in  addition  to  the  ordinary  educational  problems, 
it  is  for  him  to  exalt  every  valley,  make  low  every  hill 
and  mountain,  make  the  crooked  straight,  and  the 
rough  places  plain.  He  finds  no  way  prepared,  he 
must  make  one ;  he  finds  no  school-house  ready,  he  must 
build  one;  he  finds  no  people  anxiously  awaiting  him, 
he  must  persuade  them.  In  many  cases  the  Negro 
teacher  who  is  imbued  with  the  spirit  of  sacrifice  and 
service  can  truly  say  as  did  the  Master,  'The  foxes 
have  holes  and  the  birds  of  the  air  have  nests,  but  the 
teacher  who  would  redeem  a  poverty  stricken  and  ig- 
norant people,  has  not  where  to  lay  his  head. ' 

"The  purpose  of  the  Snow  Hill  Institute  is  to  pre- 
pare young  men  and  young  women  to  go  into  commu- 
nities where  they  propose  to  work  and  influence  the 
people  to  stop  living  in  rented  one-room  log  cabins, 


APPENDIX  135 

buy  land,  and  build  dwelling  houses  having  at  least 
four  rooms,  and  thus  improve  the  home  life  of  the 
people.  Second,  to  influence  the  people  to  build  better 
school-houses  and  lengthen  the  school  terms  and  thus 
by  arousing  educational  interest,  assist  in  bringing 
about  the  needed  reform  that  is  so  essential  to  eco- 
nomic and  upright  living ;  and  finally  to  promote  good 
character  building.  To  some  extent  the  purpose  is 
being  realized,  for  more  than  one  thousand  different 
students  who  have  been  more  or  less  benefited  by  hav- 
ing spent  a  year  or  more  under  its  guidance,  are  lead- 
ing sober  and  useful  lives.  Two  hundred  fifteen  have 
either  been  granted  certificates  or  diplomas,  and  are 
engaged  as  follows :  Fifty  are  teachers,  twenty-five  are 
housekeepers,  three  of  the  teachers  have  founded 
schools  of  their  own,  one  at  Laurinburg,  N.  C,  one  at 
West  Butler,  Alabama,  and  one  at  Richmond,  Ala- 
bama. 

''Though  the  majority  of  the  ex-students  are  lo- 
cated in  the  Black  Belt  of  Alabama  and  are  engaged 
principally  in  farming,  a  large  number  of  them  are 
found  in  the  following  states:  Mississippi,  Louisiana, 
Georgia,  Florida,  and  the  Carolinas." 


APPENDIX 

ADDRESS  DELIVERED  BY  MR.  EDWARDS  IN 
BESSEMER,  ALABAMA 


"THE  SIGNS  OF  TIMES" 

It  was  customary  in  ancient  times  for  nations  to 
build  walls  around  their  cities  to  protect  them  from 
the  enemy.  War  was  the  rule,  and  peace  the  excep- 
tion. Nations  therefore  spent  most  of  their  time  in 
preparing  for  war,  as  they  believed  that  their  advance- 
ment depended  largely  upon  their  conquest.  Watch- 
men would  be  placed  here  and  there  on  the  walls  to 
keep  a  sharp  look-out  for  the  enemy  and  when  detected, 
would  warn  the  inhabitants  of  his  approach.  As  a 
result  of  these  warlike  times  and  military  activities, 
some  of  the  world's  greatest  generals  were  produced 
during  that  period. 

Undoubtedly,  conditions  here  mentioned,  existed  be- 
cause of  the  poor  methods  of  transportation  and  com- 
munication that  were  uncertain  during  that  day,  for 
since  the  advent  of  the  steam-engine,  telegraph,  tele- 
phone, the  automobile,  and  other  means  of  rapid  tran- 
sit, national  lines  of  demarcation  have  been  becoming 
less  distinct.    As  nations  communed  with  nations  and 


138  APPENDIX 

understood  each  other  better,  they  found  less  causes 
for  differences  and  less  need  of  watchmen  on  the  walls. 

We  cannot  help  but  believe  that  with  a  better  knowl- 
edge of  each  race  by  the  other  and  on  the  part  of  each 
a  better  understanding  of  the  great  and  common  end 
of  life,  which  is  to  serve  and  uplift,  that  racial  strife 
and  conflict  will  cease  and  ere  long  this  old  world  will 
become  the  kingdom  of  our  God. 

But  these  are  not  ancient  times  and  things  that  were 
are  not  now.  The  cities  of  the  plain  are  no  longer 
separated,  for  the  walls  have  been  demolished  and  in- 
stead of  the  watchmen  we  have  the  teacher,  the 
preacher  and  the  politician  to  tell  us  the  signs  of  the 
times. 

This  is,  pre-eminently,  a  progressive  age ;  an  age  of 
going  forth;  an  age  in  which  things  move.  With  the 
new  and  varied  inventions  of  the  19th  and  20th  Cen- 
turies, old  customs  and  conditions  are  rapidly  passing 
away  and  those  nations,  races,  and  individuals  who 
cannot  adjust  themselves  to  these  new  conditions  must 
be  left  behind.  Just  now  grave  and  serious  problems 
confront  the  American  People  and  this,  in  itself,  is  a 
proof  of  our  going  forth.  We  must  not  deprecate 
them,  we  must  not  shirk  them,  they  are  ours,  we  must 
face  them  manfully,  must  shoulder  them  and  stand  up 
and  walk.  These  problems  are  the  mothers  of  pro- 
gress and  instead  of  trying  to  turn  from  them  or  to 
dodge  them,  we  should  rejoice  because  we  live  at  a 
time  when  we  can  help  in  the  solution  of  such  complex 
problems,  whose  results  will  have  such  far  reaching 
and  lasting  effect  upon  the  social  and  economic  life  of 
the  American  People. 


APPENDIX      '  139 

This  country  is  one  and  inseparable  and  whatever  is 
beneficial  to  the  white  man  is  beneficial  to  the  black 
man  also.  The  negro  cannot  hope  at  the  present  to 
play  a  very  important  part  in  the  solution  of  great 
questions.  At  our  best  the  part  we  must  play  can  only 
be  secondary.  First,  because  our  business  operations 
have  not  brought  us  into  intimate  relation  to  these 
questions  and  we  do  not  fully  comprehend  their  mean- 
ing. Second,  we  can  do  but  little  because  these  ques- 
tions are  political  in  their  nature  and  must  be  settled 
by  the  ballot.  The  Negro  in  this  section  has  been  dis- 
franchised and  therefore  he  cannot  play  at  that  game. 
Our  being  thus  handicapped  and  prohibited  from 
assisting  in  the  solution  of  these  great  problems,  is 
no  reason  why  we  should  say  there  is  nothing  we  can 
do. 

"If  you  cannot  cross  the  ocean 
And  the  heathen  lands  explore 

You  can  find  the  heathen  nearer ; 

You  can  help  them  at  your  door. 

There  are  some  problems,  however,  that  are  within 
our  reach,  upon  the  solution  of  which  depends  our 
future  welfare  in  this  country.  They  are,  inefficiency, 
vagrancy,  and  crime.  For  a  long  time  we  have  been 
hearing  of  the  inefficiency  of  the  Negro  teacher,  the 
inefficiency  of  the  Negro  preacher,  but  all  the  while  it 
was  said  that  he  was  a  good  worker;  that  he  was  only 
fitted  to  do  manual  labor.  The  cry  has  gone  out  and 
is  rapidly  spreading  to  the  effect  that  the  Negro  is 
worthless;  that  there  is  inefficiency  in  the  pulpit,  in- 
efficiency in  the  school-room,  and  now  inefficiency  on 


140  APPENDIX 

the  farm.  Inefficiency  everywhere.  Our  race  has  lost 
many  places  of  trust  and  honor  because  of  this  cry. 
I  know  personal  cases  where  Negro  men  have  been  re- 
placed by  white  men  because,  they  say,  the  black  men 
were  inefficient.  This  is  as  much  true  in  New  York  as 
it  is  in  Alabama.  As  the  supply  of  efficient  men  in- 
creases, the  demand  for  inefficient  men  will  decrease 
and  sooner  or  later  there  will  be  no  room  for  the  in- 
efficient man.  He  will  be  idle,  cannot  get  any  work  to 
do.  He  will  be  added  to  the  vagrant  class.  Already 
this  class  is  too  large  among  us;  strong  able-bodied 
men  walking  about  with  no  home  and  nothing  to  do. 
This  is  a  dangerous  class.  Of  course,  unless  the  vag- 
rant gets  some  work  to  do  he  will  starve  or  have  to 
leave  the  country;  but  this  man  does  not  do  either. 
He  becomes  a  parasite  and  lives  of  the  honest  toil  of 
others.  Sometimes  he  lives  out  of  the  white  man's 
kitchen,  because  his  sweetheart  is  the  cook ;  sometimes 
because  his  old  mother  is  a  wash  woman,  and  some- 
times because  his  sister  is  a  nurse.  This  is  the  class, 
my  white  friends,  that  gives  you  trouble,  this  is  the 
class  that  gives  us  trouble,  this  is  the  class  that  will 
give  trouble  to  any  community  and  we  are  as  anxious 
as  you  are  to  rid  ourselves  of  this  body  of  death. 

Now  the  best  class  of  Negroes  and  the  best  class  of 
white  people  are  agreed  as  to  the  fact  that  this  dan- 
gerous class  must  be  gotten  rid  of,  but  they  differ  as 
to  methods.  The  Negro  believes  mostly  in  the  pre- 
ventive method,  the  white  man  mostly  in  the  cure 
method.  The  Negro  says  a  good  school  in  every  com- 
munity will  prevent,  the  white  man  says  a  good  jail  in 
every  county  will  cure.     The  Negro  says  teach  the 


APPENDIX  141 

law,  the  white  man  says  enforce  the  law.  The  Negro 
cries  for  a  state  reformatory  for  the  boys  and  girls 
of  his  race,  the  white  man  cries  for  the  penitentiary 
for  them.  Now,  this  is  not  a  very  great  difference 
after  all  and  we  should  get  together  by  each  asking  for 
the  best  schools  to  prevent  these  evils  and  then  when 
the  evils  are  committed,  asking  for  the  strictest  law 
for  their  punishment.  As  for  my  part,  it  is  not  a 
question  in  my  mind  as  to  the  cause  of  this  increasing 
class  among  my  people.  It  is  plain  to  me  that  ignor- 
ance is  the  cause  of  inefficiency,  inefficiency  the  cause 
of  vagrancy,  and  vagrancy  the  cause  of  crime.  We 
must,  therefore,  seek  the  remedy  in  the  removal  of  the 
cause.  If  ignorance  be  the  mother  of  inefficiency,  in- 
efficiency the  mother  of  vagrancy,  and  vagrancy  the 
mother  of  crime,  it  is  plain  that  the  removal  of  ignor- 
ance will  stop  the  others.  This  can  only  be  done  by 
education  and  civic  righteousness. 

I  wish  here  to  emphasize  the  fact  that  education  is 
the  source  of  all  we  have  and  the  spring  of  all  our 
future  joys.  Our  religion,  our  morality,  and  that 
which  is  highest  and  best  in  our  social  and  civic  life, 
all  come  from  education.  Therefore,  it  is  the  primary 
factor  in  the  elevation  of  all  races. 

Our  education  should  be  of  a  threefold  nature,  viz. : 
Literary,  Industrial  and  Religious.  No  limit  should 
be  placed  upon  the  Negro's  literary  qualification.  A 
race  so  largely  segregated  as  ours,  needs  its  own 
teachers,  preachers,  lawyers,  doctors,  pharmacists,  and 
other  professional  and  business  men,  and  therefore 
they  should  be  given  the  highest  and  best  education 
that  is  obtainable.    If  our  preachers  and  teachers  are 


142  APPENDIX 

inefficient,  it  is  because  they  are  improperly  educated. 
If  the  churches  are  growing  cold  and  dying  and  the 
schools  accomplishing  but  very  little  good,  it  is  be- 
cause religion  is  not  being  made  practical  and  educa- 
tion not  being  made  to  apply  to  our  every  day  life. 
Such  an  end  can  only  be  accomplished  through  well 
and  systematically  trained  teachers  and  preachers. 
Better  teachers  and  better  preachers  will  go  a  long 
way  towards  the  alleviation  of  our  ills.  If  we  would 
secure  the  kind  of  education  here  referred  to,  we  must 
be  willing  to  pay  for  it ;  we  must  make  a  sacrifice,  we 
must  care  less  about  forms  and  fashions  and  more 
about  the  higher  things  of  life.  We  must  see  less  evils 
in  the  dollar  and  more  good. 

We  must  not  only  have  a  good  education,  but  we 
must  have  good  industrial  training.  This  is  a  scien- 
tific as  well  as  a  literary  age.  A  scientific  age  is  al- 
ways an  age  of  inventions  and  with  new  inventions 
comes  the  demand  for  men  qualified  to  manage  large 
interests  and  complicated  machinery.  This  demand 
can  only  be  supplied  by  industrially  trained  men  and 
women.  This  must  be  done  in  our  industrial  schools. 
Our  hands  should  be  as  truly  trained  to  work  as  our 
minds  to  think,  and  any  education  that  teaches  other- 
wise, is  not  worthy  of  the  name. 

I  know  that  in  some  sections  my  people  are  pre- 
judiced towards  industrial  schools,  but  this  is  foolish 
in  the  extreme.  If  we  are  to  hold  our  own  in  this 
country,  it  must  be  by  our  ability  to  do  work  and  to  do 
it  in  the  most  acceptable  manner.  We  are  in  a  farm- 
ing section  and  I  believe  that  we  should  therefore 
strive  to  be  the  best  farmers  in  the  world.    Let  us 


APPENDIX  143 

make  a  specialty  of  all  the  trades  that  are  related  in 
anyway  to  agriculture;  endeavor  to  become  the  best 
stock  raisers,  the  best  truck  gardeners,  the  best  cooks, 
the  best  wash  women,  the  best  housekeepers,  the  best 
dress  makers,  the  best  blacksmiths,  and  in  fact,  the 
best  in  all  that  pertains  to  country  life. 

Let  us  get  hold  of  the  lands  we  cultivate  as  far  as 
possible  and  build  better  homes  and  keep  our  homes 
clean.  But  you  say  that  we  do  not  need  industrial 
training.  Let  us  see.  Many  years  ago  Henry  Clay, 
in  order  to  encourage  home  industry,  introduced  a  bill 
in  the  Kentucky  Legislature  to  the  effect  that  the 
people  of  that  state  should  use  nothing  save  what 
could  be  produced  in  the  state.  Suppose  today  the 
white  man  of  this  country  should  say  that  the  Negro 
must  use  only  the  things  which  he  could  make,  what 
would  be  his  condition?  Could  we  cook  with  proper 
utensils  1  Could  we  eat  with  knives  and  forks  ?  Could 
we  dress  as  we  do  now?  Practically  everything  we 
wear  or  use  was  made  by  the  white  man  and  were  he 
to  institute  such  actions  we  would  be  helpless  to  pro- 
vide for  ourselves. 

In  our  quest  for  knowledge,  we  must  not  overlook 
the  education  of  the  heart.  Our  religion  should  be 
made  practical.  It  must  be  real  and  not  visionary. 
No  other  will  suffice.  Our  religion  must  consist  more 
in  deeds  and  less  in  words. 


Suver-HowundPKus 

271  Franklin  St. 

'BOSTOM 


